Modular learning environment

University of Westminster MA Design for Interaction

Designers: Simone Nogueira, Rodrigo Zuniga Andrighetti

May 2006

Introduction

This project explores concepts of interaction on information environments during thelearning process. We have defined three different scenarios for our research. The firstscenario shows the user studying alone - an individual interaction with information; thesecond scenario presents the user asking for help from a classmate by phone - a socialinteraction supported by a virtual environment; finally we present a third scenario defined byusers studying in groups - an understanding of social interaction between students during thelearning process in the real environment (in situ).

I. Analysis

> First scenario

Daniel is a 19 years old university student. The semester is finishing and he is preparing for the final exams. He is studying marketing, alone in his room. For this, Daniel has a table close to his bed where he has spread out all the relevantinformation related to the topic that he is studying. The information isdisplayed in class notes, books, photocopies, and other texts from the contentsof the course. He has also brought to his table a paper with notes from lastsemester’s course that has some issues related to this module. He has someexercises that are difficult to solve. Now he is dealing with a problem and he isunable to find the correct result, he is not able to understand why. Daniel triesto find a similar exercise among his notes that was successfully solved, to see if there is a way to associate the formulas and understand the problem he alsochecks the book, looking for something similar to use as a guide. He reads theexplanation that the course book gives and follows all the instructions, step bystep, but he is still not able to understand. Finally he gives up, and leaves ituntil later.

Design observations

Creating a personalized knowledge environment

One important issue that we have realized in this scenario is that the user spreads around himsomething that we call the “user defined knowledge environment”. Daniel creates thisenvironment of knowledge around him in a natural way. Every time he needs some notes, a book or text, he brings it to his table, uses it, and leaves it there, ready to be used again. This

knowledge environment

acts as a support for his studies. At the beginning we thought of thisenvironment of things spread out around him as something confusing and disorganised, butafter analysing it, we discovered that it makes sense, and it becomes for our understandingnow, one of the main elements of the study activity. The main characteristic of this

knowledge environment

is that it is defined by the user; remains always present and ready to be used; is extensible and navigable; affords manipulation and reconfiguration in order tocreate associations and comparison.

> Second scenario

Daniel is stuck on chapter 8 of the course book. The exercise that he was notable to solve before is affecting his further study. So he gives up trying it aloneand calls her friend Sophie, to avoid wasting more time. She is at Universitystudying with other friends, so she is able to give him some help. Danielexplains to her the problem that he has tried to solve. Sophie checks the same book that Daniel has and they solve the exercise together step by step. Danielstops Sophie at the point where he has had problems, and asks her why she hasoperated the exercise in this way. Sophie explains the reasons to him, while hetakes some notes. Sophie also gives the page numbers of the explanation in the book. They hang up, and Daniel checks the information and the notes, solvingsome more exercises. Now the results are correct, and he is able to keepstudying alone.

Design observations

Meeting in virtual environments

During this phone conversation, Daniel and Sophie needed to define ‘what’ they are talkingabout. The ‘what’ becomes the virtual environment. Language becomes the main tool to