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CapCHI Activities
Past Activities 2007-2008
- 2008/03/03 - Early Childhood Learning, Cultural Play, and Open License Children’s Music with Songchild.org, presented by Jason Nolan and Danny Bakan.
- 2008/02/26 - Rome, Sweet Rome: Ancient Lessons in Design, presented by Jennifer Fraser.
- 2008/02/12 - The CRC/NRC Virtual Classroom Program, presented by John Spence, Martin Brooks, & Bruno Emond.
- 2008/01/14 - Who's Minding the Kids?, presented by Valerie Steeves.
- 2007/12/04 - CHICamp - short presentations from the local community.
- 2007/10/30 - Usability of Click-Based Graphical Passwords, presented by Sonia Chiasson and Robert Biddle.
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Early Childhood Learning, Cultural Play, and Open License Children’s
Music with Songchild.org
Presented by Jason Nolan and Danny Bakan
Monday March 03, 2008, 7:00 - 9:00 PM at bitHeads, Inc.
Sponsored by Design Interpretive!
Abstract
Songchild is a wiki-based collaboration between a scholar and a professional musician (Danny Bakan) that seeks to re-infuse the folk element back into children's music. We want to use the creative, artistic, authentic voices of the child, parent and teacher to expand the sharing of cultural narratives, and we want to leverage the web 2.0 infrastructure to enhance community and connectivity between multilingual, multi-age, and multicultural communities.
Web 2.0 technologies such as Youtube, Google Earth, Facebook and Myspace represent a resurgence of folk culture" "The everyday and intimate creativity that all of us share and pass on to the next..." (http://www.loc.gov/folklife/whatisfolklife.html). With this resugence we experience the blurring of the boundaries of producer and consumer, the questioning of ownership of content and the commodification of cultural experience. Though access to these forms of communication are mediated by corporations, content is user driven. We are looking to integrate Songchild with One Laptop Per Child project, Jhai PC and other related initiatives that work to put tools in the hands of children for constructionist learning.
Children learn about technology from their parents and teachers before they are influenced by peers and advertising. With their families children are taking digital photos before they are three and "mucking about with mom's linux box." We see computers as tools for putting people in touch with people and the products they create, and we hope to integrate this perspective with the notion that learning is primarily a socially and culturally situated act.
This presentation will start by situating the collaborators in the creation of technology based learning environments and include an overview of the issues surrounding songchild and a interactive workshop component, facilitated by Danny via shared workspaces from Toronto, relating to songs and lyrics as they relate to technology and early learning environments. Other issues include the OLPC, sharing of cultural information, first language maintenance (learning your parents' language), music and early childhood education, the power of song as a whole brain activity.
Bios
Jason Nolan (http://lemmingworks.org) is an assistant professor of Early Childhood Education at Ryerson University where he teaches courses in children and technology and science education in the early years. He has spent 20 years teaching and learning with technology with a particular interest in learning in non-formal environments. He is founding co-editor of the journal Learning Inquiry (Springer), and the book series Transdisciplinary Studies (Sense Publishing). In 2005 he co-edited "Less of You, More of Us: The Political Economy of Power in Virtual Communities." which was published as a special issue of the ACM SIGGROUP Bulletin, and in 2006 co-edited The International Handbook of Virtual Learning Environments (Springer). Research interests children and technology, children's conceptualisation of space, learning in the margins, virtual learning environments from MOOs to Second Life, blogs, wikis and all the little bits in between.
Danny Bakan (http://dannybakan.com) is a professional musician and songwriter, as well as a sessional instructor with the school of Early Childhood Education at Ryerson University where he teaches arts-based education.
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Rome, Sweet Rome: Ancient Lessons in Design
Presented by Jennifer Fraser
Tuesday February 26, 2008 at Corel Corporation
Abstract
Vitruvius, the first Roman Architect to write about architecture, asserted that any well-designed building must exhibit the three qualities of "firmitas, utilitas, venustas" or be durable, useful and beautiful. Can these same three tenets be applied today to help us design better interactions in a digital environment?
This presentation will first touch on the similarities between designing buildings and designing digital interactions. Then, there will be an introduction to Vitruvius and his book, De Architectura. In his book Vitruvius writes about this notion of a well-designed building being durable, useful and beautiful. Those three qualities will first be looked at in their historical context, but then will be examined to see how they translate into the contemporary context of interaction design.
Bio
Jennifer Fraser is a Lead User Experience Designer at Corel and during her ten years with them she has worked on a wide variety of products. She has both a Bachelor and Master of Architecture from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. During the last year of her undergraduate degree she learned how to sew and poured concrete into spandex formwork. Several years and many architectural exams later she did research in the areas of information visualization and the oral tradition for her Master's thesis, "Visualizing a Hypertext Narrative".
Jennifer is a past speaker at DUX '05, SXSW Interactive 2007 and will be presenting this "Rome, sweet Rome" talk in March at SXSW Interactive 2008. She was recently featured in a FastCompany.com "Innovation Wednesday" column and authored a case study for Dan Saffer's recent book, designing for interaction: Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices.
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The CRC/NRC Virtual Classroom Program
Presented by John Spence, Martin Brooks, & Bruno Emond
Tuesday February 12, 2008 at bitHeads, Inc.
Sponsored by Design Interpretive!
Abstract
The virtual classroom program is managed by the Communication Research Centre in Ottawa and the Institute for Information Technology (National Research Council Canada). The program consists of a series of thematic events where students from schools across Canada exchange over a three-hour period using videoconference equipment. The events are designed to involve three to six groups of 30 to 100 students in each school. The virtual classroom pedagogical model is based on virtual peer-learning communities supported by mentors where high-school students are challenged to work authentic problems such as ethical issues related to stem cell research, diet and body image, war debates, climate change, and world water supply.
The presentation will outline the development of the CRC/NRC virtual classroom program since 1997 as well as various aspects of the program including learning event design, test bed for ethics approved social analysis research, and technologies used to facilitate learning including the deployment of broadband access for schools, Isabel, H.323 terminals, and more recently a broadband virtual camera for asynchronous communication.
Bios
John Spence is presently a private consultant in E-learning and E-Health broadband applications. From 1997 to 2007 he held the position of Program Manager, Application Technologies, Broadband Networks Technologies Branch, at Communications Research Centre , Canada (CRC), Industry Canada. He has 10 years experience in the design and implementation of broadband technologies to support eLearning and e-Health applications. He continues to co manages with Dr. Martin Brooks the CRC/NRC VirtualClassroom Program. The goal of the VirtualClassroom program is to form collaborative partnerships to research and develop innovative broadband knowledge management and collaborative learning applications for virtual learning communities. He was program manager of operations for the successful LearnCanada, MusicGrid and Eucalyptus CANARIE projects.
Dr. Martin Brooks is a visual communication consultant. Until September 2007, Brooks led the Broadband Visual Communication Research Program at NRC's Institute for Information Technology. Brooks was the Research Manager for the CANARIE-funded projects LearnCanada (www.LearnCanada.ca), MusicGrid (www.MusicGrid.ca), and Participatory Design Studio (iit-iti.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/projects-projets/eucalyptus_e.html). Brooks has previously led NRC's Interactive Information and Knowledge Systems research groups. Prior to coming to NRC, Brooks carried out research in robotics, artificial intelligence, and software engineering at SINTEF, in Oslo Norway. Brooks has a B.A. in mathematics from MIT and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University.
Dr. Bruno Emond's research has evolved over his career from issues related to knowledge representation, natural language, logic, and artificial intelligence to fundamental issues related to the modelling of human cognition, and critical issues for broadband e-learning. His main scientific and technological contributions include his analysis of logical reasoning using graphical representations, his software contributions to the ACT-R cognitive architecture, and his suite of video server applications for the education sector.
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Who's Minding the Kids?
Presented by Valerie Steeves
Monday January 14, 2008 at bitHeads Inc.
Sponsored by Design Interpretive!
Abstract
Children's personal information is an increasingly hot commodity in the information marketplace, and a number of online playgrounds aggressively collect kids' information. This presentation provided an overview of the information practices in three of those playgrounds -- Neopets, Barbie.com and Webkinz -- and examines the ways in which corporations invade children's privacy to manipulate their behaviour and embed commercial messages into their sense of identity. Interestingly, kids are both aware and unaware of the manipulative environment in which they play. The presentation accordingly concluded with a discussion of research findings regarding kids' attitudes about privacy and their thoughts about whether or not the current regulatory model, with its focus on notice and consent, can give them the kind of privacy protection they desire.
Bio
Valerie Steeves is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminology at the University of Ottawa. Her main area of research is the impact of new technologies on human rights issues. Professor Steeves has spoken and written extensively on privacy, and was the lead researcher for the Young Canadians in a Wired World research project, measuring the effect of new media on young people's privacy and social relationships. Ms. Steeves has appeared as an expert witness before a number of Parliamentary Committees regarding privacy legislation, and is a member of the Canadian Standards Association's Technical Committee on Privacy. She has also worked with a number of government departments to develop privacy education curriculum and materials. Her Web-based educational game Sense and NonSense won the first annual Excellence in Race Relations Education award from the Canadian Race Relations Foundation in 1998 and her game Privacy Playground was awarded the Bronze Medal at the 2006 Summit Creative Awards Competition, an international competition involving thousands of entries from 26 countries. In 2004, Professor Steeves was awarded the LaBelle Lectureship from McMaster University. The LaBelle is a juried prize that recognizes scholars doing interdisciplinary work and challenging accepted ideas.
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CHI Camp
Tuesday December 4, 2007 at bitHeads Inc.
Sponsored by Design Interpretive!
Abstract
Like a BarCamp or a DemoCamp, this event included several short, less formal, presentations from the local community.
Participants do not have to be a CHI or usabiilty professional to participate. Members of the general public are always welcome at CHI meetings.
To be a presentor, participants just needed to be passionate about the idea they wanted to share and open to comments from the room.
Our first CHICamp included the following sessions/presenters:
- From concept to prototype to product, a case study of SpokenText.net and how it used UCD and Agile development techniques to create a site used by students all over the world. Presented by Mark McKay, Bruce Tsuji and Robert Biddle.
- Understanding Workflows and how workflows can improve human interface design. Examples will be given using Jetfire, an open source workflow language. Presented by John Hansen and Charles Wiebe, www.jetfire.ca.
- Cross-cultural Web usability. Presented by Huiping Iler, www.wintranslation.com.
- Who are you? Social Implications of Biometrics. Presented by Andrew Patrick, andrew@capchi.org.
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Usability of Click-Based Graphical Passwords
Presented by Sonia Chiasson and Robert Biddle
Tuesday October 30, 2007 at bitHeads Inc.
Sponsored by Design Interpretive!
Abstract
Click-based graphical passwords, which involve clicking a set of user-selected points, have been proposed as a usable alternative to text passwords. We conducted two user studies: an initial lab study to revisit these usability claims, explore for the first time the impact on usability of a wide-range of images, and gather information about the points selected by users; and a large-scale field study to examine how click-based graphical passwords work in practice. We have also begun work on modifications to the standard interface that improve both memorability and security of passwords, and will report on our preliminary results.
Bios
Sonia Chiasson is a PhD candidate at Carleton University. She earlier completed a Bachelor of Computer Science at the University of New Brunswick, and a Masters in Computer Science from the University of Saskatchewan. Her Masters work focused on HCI, and investigated how children interact with computers in a social manner that might be leveraged to improve user interfaces. While in Saskatchewan, Sonia also worked as a full-time instructor for the Computer Science department. At Carleton University, Sonia's current research focus is on the emerging field of usable security. Projects include developing and testing new authentication methods that address the usability and security problems discovered through evaluation of existing schemes.
Robert Biddle is Professor of Human Computer Interaction and a member of the graduate faculty of both Psychology and Computer Science at Carleton University in Ottawa. He has Bachelors and Masters degrees in Applied Analysis and Computer Science from the University of Waterloo, a PhD from the University of Canterbury, and has diplomas in both childhood and adult education. His research areas are Human-Computer Interaction and Software Design, and his current projects are in agile software processes, software as interactive media, and usable computer security.
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