Multimodal Communication in ALiC Enabling Industrial Simulation in Undergraduate Team Projects

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Multimodal Communication in ALiC Enabling
Industrial Simulation in Undergraduate Team
Projects

• Marie Devlin, Lindsay Marshall, Chris Phillips
• University of Newcastle

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Active Learning in Computing

• Centre of Excellence in Teaching Learning
  project - (CETL)
• Led by Durham with University of Newcastle upon
  Tyne, University of Leeds and Leeds Metropolitan
  University as project partners.

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Innovative Curriculum
Transferable Skills
Student Views
Active Learning
Authentic Activities
Active Participation Engagement
Appropriate Assessment
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ActiveLearningin Computing

• AliC facilitates multi-modal communication via
  dedicated rooms
• Web cams, laptops, wireless capabilities
• Large Screens for display projection
• Capture cameras for video recording

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Team Project Overview

• Shared task between Durham and Newcastle teams
  (Year 2).
• Work as one company to develop software.
• Product is Tourism Guide for both PDA Mobile
  Phone.
• Teams must cooperate on analysis, design e.g.
  look and feel of GUI, functionality as well as
  implementation testing.
• Project lasts for full academic year and students
  must review the products and the process at the
  end.

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Team Project Aims

• To simulate real working practice within
  multi-site software development teams.
• Develop communication and team-working skills as
  part of transferable skills required by
  employers.
• Enable students to take control of and
  responsibility for their own learning.
• Allow students to employ the technologies and
  facilities in their own way in order to afford
  efficient communication and effective team-work.

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Team Project Machine-Mediated Multi-Modal
Communication

• Sight and sound make communication more natural.
• Communication is richer when speech and vision
  are involved - add gestures, facial expressions
  and other non-verbal cues.
• Make it easier for us to gather, process and
  interpret information in order to understand and
  learn.
• We tend to simplify communication if interacting
  via text alone e.g. emails are short, text
  messages use shorthand not only a matter of
  space but of speed.
• Importance of a communication is often lost
  emphasis, urgency, response time etc. Personality
  can make all the difference

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Team Project Machine-Mediated Multi-Modal
Communication

• Needed to use tools and technologies that employ
  natural modalities of communication.
• Emulation of face to face interaction important
  for teams to bond.
• Lesson to be learned from this project is the
  importance of communication in teams.
• Hence the opportunity for rich forms of
  communication is crucial to its success.

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Team Project Machine Mediated Multi-modal
Communication Methods

• Main communication methods have been
  video-conferencing, telephone and email so far.
• Mobile Phone SMS text, voice.
• MSN with the option of web cameras.
• Web Forums, Wikis, Weblogs and shared areas for
  documents etc.

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Team Project Experiences

• Communication problems were expected, students
  gradually becoming used to the technology, shy at
  first.
• Teams need to be well organised and have chosen
  an effective team structure with clear roles and
  responsibilities.
• Some technical problems audio and visual - but
  ironing these out.
• Video conferencing successful in emulating face
  to face communication. Hoping to record some
  sessions and use video at later stages.

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Team Project Experiences

• Generally find it useful, fun, positive and
  effective.
• Learning to negotiate and compromise
• Adapting and sharing ideas.
• Plan around differing schedules expectations

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Further Work

• Find other ways to implement more natural
  communication at a distance and allow more
  effective information exchange.
• More use of multimedia software/interactivity.
• Evaluate student feedback on module when complete
  with regard to defining interaction preferences
  and benefits/drawbacks.
• Measure efficiency of verbal and non-verbal
  communications using video/audio from
  conferencing sessions.
• Incorporate more challenging tasks, different
  task and user types and monitor results.
• Investigate new capabilities/technologies to
  enhance teaching and research.