Enhancing the content and experience of Interactive Childrens Television. Interactive television (iTV) as a participatory, on-demand communication provides a unique opportunity to significantly engage, entertain and educate preschool children. Through considerable industry partner collaboration and participation, this project will evaluate three distinct interactive options produced from selected children's television programs with proven success in Australia. Usability studies employing a vari ....Enhancing the content and experience of Interactive Childrens Television. Interactive television (iTV) as a participatory, on-demand communication provides a unique opportunity to significantly engage, entertain and educate preschool children. Through considerable industry partner collaboration and participation, this project will evaluate three distinct interactive options produced from selected children's television programs with proven success in Australia. Usability studies employing a variety of surveillance techniques will evaluate content design and user response. Children's viewing habits will be evaluated within a social context (the home) and a mobile lab setting using qualitative and quantitative assessment. The results will identify effective ways to produce meaningful interactivity and will encourage future industry based research.Read moreRead less
Researching, designing and evaluating online learning tools to effectively utilise audio-visual archives: critical literacies through rich task interactivity. In collaboration with Film Australia and award winning eLearning company Crank Media, researchers will prototype next-generation broadband learning tools that continually assess and respond to an individual user's knowledge gaps, and enable access to digital resources derived from personal learning styles and preferences. Underpinned by di ....Researching, designing and evaluating online learning tools to effectively utilise audio-visual archives: critical literacies through rich task interactivity. In collaboration with Film Australia and award winning eLearning company Crank Media, researchers will prototype next-generation broadband learning tools that continually assess and respond to an individual user's knowledge gaps, and enable access to digital resources derived from personal learning styles and preferences. Underpinned by distributed learning theory and working with ?rich task? activities within a content aggregation scaffolding the research will design and field test innovative online study and revision activities. It will engage learners in recognizing and switching their learning paradigms appropriately, and in articulating these decisions through dynamic content pathways utilizing Film Australia's invaluable archives.Read moreRead less
Literacy in the digital world of the twenty-first century: learning from computer games. The creation of a literate and tech-savvy workforce and community is essential to Australia's future prosperity. By helping teachers better understand and teach ICT-enabled forms of text and literacy, drawing on insights from young people's actual engagement with digital culture in their leisure hours, the project will help strengthen young Australians' capacity to critically evaluate and use ICTs for effect ....Literacy in the digital world of the twenty-first century: learning from computer games. The creation of a literate and tech-savvy workforce and community is essential to Australia's future prosperity. By helping teachers better understand and teach ICT-enabled forms of text and literacy, drawing on insights from young people's actual engagement with digital culture in their leisure hours, the project will help strengthen young Australians' capacity to critically evaluate and use ICTs for effective learning and communication. This project will help produce the skills, knowledge and orientations necessary to create smart information use, through developing and strengthening young people's uses and understandings of ICT-based forms of text and literacy.Read moreRead less
'Digital Natives': Growing up with new and old media in Australia. Developing a sophisticated digital literacy is important for both the future of children, the cultural, social and economic well-being of the nation. Digital literacy requires not only communications infrastructure but targeted investment in human skills. Investing in the development of a digitally literate Australian population has become an explicit means for promoting the future economic and social well-being of the nation. Th ....'Digital Natives': Growing up with new and old media in Australia. Developing a sophisticated digital literacy is important for both the future of children, the cultural, social and economic well-being of the nation. Digital literacy requires not only communications infrastructure but targeted investment in human skills. Investing in the development of a digitally literate Australian population has become an explicit means for promoting the future economic and social well-being of the nation. The information provided by this project has the potential to contribute significantly to giving children 'a healthy start to life' in their early years. Read moreRead less
An investigation of meaning negotiation in electronic discourse. This project investigates the use of collaborative electronic exchanges between language students in Indonesian and Queensland schools to enhance language and inter-cultural development. The chief investigators will develop a new model of discourse appropriate to such asynchronous communication (e-mail and forums), as well as investigate developments in technological literacy. Other outcomes will include guidelines for creating pra ....An investigation of meaning negotiation in electronic discourse. This project investigates the use of collaborative electronic exchanges between language students in Indonesian and Queensland schools to enhance language and inter-cultural development. The chief investigators will develop a new model of discourse appropriate to such asynchronous communication (e-mail and forums), as well as investigate developments in technological literacy. Other outcomes will include guidelines for creating practical technology-mediated tasks, and protocols for establishing and maintaining electronic tandem exchanges with a developing country. Results will be reported to the Industry Partner and relevant educational authorities and published in national and international journals such as ARAL, Babel and CALL Journal.Read moreRead less