Papers by Elisabeth Sylvan
Computer-supported collaborative learning, 2007
Abstract As online tools and social web sites become more popular, people are sharing more of the... more Abstract As online tools and social web sites become more popular, people are sharing more of their creations online. This thesis uses social network analysis to understand how community members share creations and learn from one another. It looks at the communities' network structure, how ideas diffuse through them, which ideas are adopted and incorporated into members' work, and how members describe the ways their work relates to others'.
Increasingly, distraction is just a click away: computers offer you the temptation to switch from... more Increasingly, distraction is just a click away: computers offer you the temptation to switch from your primary task. The current work describes four investigations into how well people manage switching between tasks and between multiple computer applications: a controlled experiment on task-switching, a survey on email behavior and efficient, a survey on how different computer applications are used for work and outside of work, and an analysis of computer users real-world switching behavior. Based on the findings, two outcomes are presented: 1.) a new software tool that visualizes workflow to encourage users to reflect upon their work habits and their task switching and 2.) implications for the design of monitoring software, tools for self-reflection, and push or disruptive technologies such as email systems.
We explore how an interactive pathway impacts children&am... more We explore how an interactive pathway impacts children's play patterns in outdoor playgrounds. The paper describes our experience designing and testing the prototype at various stages of development with twenty children age three to five enrolled in a preschool childcare center. We provide examples of the children's diverse play patterns and conclude with initial reflections on the design of responsive
International Conference of Learning Sciences, Jun 27, 2006
Social network analysis can be used to describe influence, group dynamics and collaboration in le... more Social network analysis can be used to describe influence, group dynamics and collaboration in learning networks. The current analysis focuses on a distributed community of learners' email communication and represents the first step in understanding the community's social dynamics. It focuses upon the online intranet presence of the Computer Clubhouse, a network of after-school computer learning centers. The paper presents network analysis and graphs that highlight characteristics of the relationships between the youth, such as strength of their ties, gender, and location of emailing dyads. Implications for future network analysis of learning communities are discussed.
International Conference of Learning Sciences, Jun 29, 2010
Abstract This paper introduces Online Communities of Creators, the subset of social networking si... more Abstract This paper introduces Online Communities of Creators, the subset of social networking sites in which the focus is sharing, developing and understanding personal creations. It proposes that two kinds of influence are important in these communities: social influence and project influence. Using multiple linear regressions the factors that predict each type of influence were identified for one Online Community of Creators called the Scratch Community web site.
This thesis presents a new framework for understanding how communities of creators share work, in... more This thesis presents a new framework for understanding how communities of creators share work, influence one another's creative processes, and learn from one another. I introduce the concept of Online Communities of Creators (OCOCs), which are online communities where the core activity is sharing personal creations. These communities can play an important part in the development of the Creative Society by providing venues for people to encourage each other's creative processes and output. By fostering each other's desires to create and share, these communities help individuals to experience the joy of designing, creating, and sharing.
This paper introduces the concept of Online Communities of Creators (OCOCs), which are a subset o... more This paper introduces the concept of Online Communities of Creators (OCOCs), which are a subset of social network sites in which the core activity is sharing personal, original creations. Next it defines two distinct types of influence, Project Influence and Social Influence. Project influence is a measure of the degree to which the community recognizes members' work. Social influence is a measure of how much a member is a social bridge between otherwise unconnected members. These two types of influence are studied in an online programming community called the Scratch Online Community. Two multiple linear regressions determine the factors that predict each of the two types of influence. The factors predicting each were distinct, suggesting that these are two distinct constructs in this community.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMAN–COMPUTER INTERACTION, 2006
Page 1. Author Index to Volume 20 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMAN–COMPUTER INTERACTION, 20(3), 309... more Page 1. Author Index to Volume 20 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMAN–COMPUTER INTERACTION, 20(3), 309 Copyright © 2006, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Antona, M. 79 Beck, J. 233 Bhalla, S. 135 Brzezinski, J. 3 Candy, L. 61 Chai, YH 285 Chan, S. 3 Choi, B. 171 Czerwinski, M. 61 Edmonds, E. 61 Eisenberg, M. 61 Fang, X. 3 Fischer, G. 61 Giaccardi, E. 61 Han, SH 233 Hashimoto, T. 135 Hewitt, T. 61 Hong, D. 271 Jang, G. 285 Jennings, P. 61 Ji, GY 117, 169, 207 Kim, J. 171 Kules, B. 61 Kwon, DS 247 Kyung, K.-U. 247 ...
We explore how an interactive pathway impacts children’s play patterns in outdoor playgrounds. Th... more We explore how an interactive pathway impacts children’s play patterns in outdoor playgrounds. The paper describes our experience designing and testing the prototype at various stages of development with twenty children age three to five enrolled in a preschool childcare center. We provide examples of the children’s diverse play patterns and conclude with initial reflections on the design of responsive playground elements.
Young people can represent and understand complex systems by designing games. The work we report ... more Young people can represent and understand complex systems by designing games. The work we report is from a Scratch workshop focused on understanding trade-offs associated with energy use in relation to climate change. One participant’s work illustrates the potential for game design to support understanding of complexity and, in particular, the mutually constitutive nature of conceptual understanding and the contextualized activity of game design.
CHI '13 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2013
ABSTRACT Educational games may lend themselves to innovative forms of learning assessment. This p... more ABSTRACT Educational games may lend themselves to innovative forms of learning assessment. This paper reports on game-based science learning assessments that explore how to measure the emergent learning that takes place in games by revealing tacit knowledge development. This research combines video analysis and educational data mining to identify cognitive strategies that emerge through gameplay. By studying the video and click data from high school learners playtesting the game, Impulse, we identify systematic ways of predicting the observed strategies and making possible connections to formal science learning.
Proceedings of the 8th iternational conference on Computer supported collaborative learning - CSCL'07, 2007
Abstract As online tools and social web sites become more popular, people are sharing more of the... more Abstract As online tools and social web sites become more popular, people are sharing more of their creations online. This thesis uses social network analysis to understand how community members share creations and learn from one another. It looks at the communities' network structure, how ideas diffuse through them, which ideas are adopted and incorporated into members' work, and how members describe the ways their work relates to others'.
walltrust.com
Digital technologies have entered almost all areas of children's lives including entertainme... more Digital technologies have entered almost all areas of children's lives including entertainment, museums, and toys. Until recently, playgrounds stayed technology-free. With the increasing availability of technologies for outdoor interaction, we envision that digitally enhanced equipment will be incorporated into playgrounds in the near future [9]. In an effort to inform the HCI community about this emerging field, we designed interactive prototypes, conducted a field study, and put forth recommendations for the design of Reactive ...
pubs.media.mit.edu
We present the idea of an interactive programmable spherical device named Program-a-Ball, PaB, an... more We present the idea of an interactive programmable spherical device named Program-a-Ball, PaB, and the idea of a scalable construction set of n possible PaBs. One PaB allows a child (4-to-99-years old) to design, program, and test fantasy-world or real-world interactive applications; more PaBs increase the possibilities. A specific PaB can be programmed to trigger a pre-specified response when it senses a specific stimulus. PaBs are designed to be programmed by the direct physical manipulation of its parts which are ...
This paper describes the relationship between social influence and science identity within a mass... more This paper describes the relationship between social influence and science identity within a massively multiplayer online (MMO) role-playing game. For four months, the beta-test community of a new MMO (Blue Mars) was invited into a science mystery game called Martian Boneyards. This game was designed to support and measure collaborative inquiry during players' free-choice activity. The tools designed for Martian Boneyards, and the participatory manner in which they were implemented, focused on rewarding players' ...
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Papers by Elisabeth Sylvan