EC-TEL 2011

Scope

Welcome to the home page of the 1st international Workshop on Enhancing Learning with Ambient Displays and Visualization Techniques. 

!!!! The program of the workshop is now online: Program !!!

We will use a Google hangout for remote participation in the workshop. Just send a mail to joris.klerkx@gmail.com with your google+ email address and we’ll add you to the advtel google+ circle.

The twitter hashtag for the workshop is #advtel2011


Visualization techniques have been researched as a way to help people deal with the abundance of information. It makes use of the principles in Gestalt Theory that explains the human visual capacity, such as proximity, similarity, continuity, symmetry, closure and relative size [1]. They rely on the design of effective and efficient interactive visual representations that users can manipulate to solve specific tasks themselves. This approach is especially useful when a person does not know what questions to ask about the data or when (s)he wants to ask better, more meaningful questions [2]. At the same time displays have become a pervasive part of our environment in various manifestations. While they were traditionally used to (mainly visually) present information they also become more and more important as interfaces to access and interact with digital information. Following these developments, researchers have recently started to exploit the potential of ambient displays for learning purposes, research cognitive effects, and promote the interaction of learners with their environment.    

In this workshop, we are looking for contributions in the intersection of Technology Enhanced Learning and
  • Information visualization; that concentrates on the use of interactive visual representations of abstract data to amplify cognition [3]. It is focused on enabling users to control the process of navigating through information spaces in flexible ways. 
  • Visual analytics; that aims to support analytical reasoning by interactive visual interfaces [4]. 
  • Knowledge visualization; that uses visual representations to improve the transfer and creation of knowledge between people [5]. 
  • Ambient Display Design; that supports individual and collaborative learning processes, problem solving and sense making
We believe that the intersection of both fields – i.e. visualization and Technology Enhanced Learning - can provoke exploration, insight and understanding. Therefore, suggested topics for contributions to our workshop include the use of existing and novel visualization techniques to the following, not limited list of application domains in TEL:
  • Personalization, user modeling and adaptation 
  • Science 2.0, 
  • Learning analytics, 
  • Self-reflected learning, 
  • Recommendation techniques, 
  • Mobile technologies, 
  • Tabletop technologies, 
  • Learning Object Repositories and its federations, 
  • Evaluation methods for visualization techniques, 
  • Social awareness, 
  • Practices of diverse Technology Enhanced Learning disciplines, and how visualization techniques can influence them, 
  • Exploration and exploratory search 
  • Design dimensions and patterns 
  • Theoretical approaches for embedding ambient learning displays in educational environments 
  • Evaluation methodologies 
  • Prototypical Implementations 
  • Experimental validations of ambient learning displays 
  • Sense making 
  • Problem Solving 
  • Information Awareness 
  • Personalization and Contextualization 
  • Feedback and changes in behavior 
  • Distributed Interaction 
  • Embodiment (into the physical environment) 
  • Ambient Intelligence 
  • Design guidelines 
  • Ambient Information Channel

References
[1] C. Ware. Information visualization: perception for design. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., San Francisco, CA, USA, 2000. 
[2]  J.-D. Fekete, J. J. Van Wijk, J. T. Stasko, and C. North. The Value of Information Visual- ization. Information Visualization, pages 1–18, 2008.
[3] S. K. Card, J. D. Mackinlay, and B. Shneiderman. Using vision to think. Morgan Kauf- mann, 1999. 
[4] W. Aigner, A. Bertone, and S. Miksch. Tutorial: Introduction to Visual Analytics. In HCI and Usability for Medicine and Health Care, pages 453–456. Springer-Verlag, 2007.
[5] R. A. Burkhard and M. Meier. Tube Map Visualization: Evaluation of a Novel Knowledge Visualization Application for the Transfer of Knowledge in Long-Term Projects. Journal of Universal Computer Science, 11(4):473–494, Apr. 2005.