Issue
Article
Vol.30 No.4, October 1998
Article
Issue
Issue |
Article |
Vol.30 No.4, October 1998 |
Article |
Issue |
Each year the CHI conference reaches out to new communities that have an interest in learning more about CHI and that can teach CHI more about them. The Development Consortium (DC) at CHI 98 brought together selected educators from five countries that shared their views on HCI issues in educational settings. This year, DC participants attended a pre-conference workshop, took part in the CHIkids tutorial and CHIkids program, participated in regular CHI conference activities, and reflected on their experiences in a final session.
We succeeded in sharing the special spirit of the CHI community and its conference. The educators were impressed by the friendliness, openness, and diversity of its people and by the innovative, dedicated work on educational technology. DC participants planned to take back the results from the research presented at the conference and apply it in their own settings.
Educators were impressed by the number of projects with an educational theme and expressed the hope that the special focus on education at CHI 98 (as one of three specified content areas) was not a one-time affair but part of an ongoing effort.
This statement during a discussion period by a CHI presenter reflected the "technology push" mode of thinking DC participants clearly rejected. They advocated for technology and interfaces developed for them and with them that address the needs and constraints of the educational setting and its actors.
Educators explained that across the globe they cope with bad support for Information Technology, lack of training, and lack of budgeted time for new activities, making it difficult to develop the new curricular activities that utilize the new technologies, interfaces, and learning environments featured at CHI. If the HCI community wants to have an impact, DC participants explained that solutions need to be developed in cooperation with educators that take these constraints into account. This means not just developing new hardware and software, but making it stable and reliable enough to work in the rather rough school setting. In addition, educational content and activities need to be developed that map to the learning goals that are often mandated by federal, state, or local governments. In short, the HCI community must get involved in education to develop adequate tools.
Teachers often work under severe time constraints. This was a discussion that frequently came up during our time with DC participants. It was explained that software and hardware which is unreliable wastes precious resources, requires costly planning of traditional backup activities in case it fails, and destroys the trust of teachers (and students). It is fair to point out that most of the work presented at CHI features prototypes using cutting edge technology but we need to be aware that the requirements for use in schools are in many respects not different from those for mission critical software in work environments.
Many new contacts were formed between DC participants and between DC participants and people in the CHI community. For example, a number of participants will field test systems and ideas featured at CHI. Participants will initiate and/or establish contacts with their local CHI communities and report the efforts of the CHI conference to the education communities in their home country.
All those working seriously on educational technology know that success requires a long-term commitment and that measurable impact often takes years to achieve. The CHI'98 Development Consortium was one step towards this effort.
Dean Eichorn, Mountain Secondary School, Langley, B.C., Canada
Rocky Harris, Hillsboro High School, Oregon, USA
Bozena Mannova, Chairperson Committee for IT in Secondary Schools in the Czech Republic
Cezary Orlowski, Technical University of Gdansk, Poland
Fred Rencsok, Auburn High School, VA, USA
Marcin Sikorski, Technical University of Gdansk, Poland
Cynthia Solomon, Milton Academy, MA, USA
Peter Soreanu, Misgav High School, Israel
Allison Druin, University of Maryland, USA
Angela Boltman, Hawthorne Elementary School, USA
Jürgen Koenemann, GMD
CHI98-Dev@acm.org
Issue |
Article |
Vol.30 No.4, October 1998 |
Article |
Issue |