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This section contains all external publications written by Futurelab staff. These include papers submitted to conferences and journals; book chapters (these are either reproduced here where possible, or full publishing details given); articles written for the press; and links to other publications on external websites.
Please note: the publications listed on this page are NOT covered by Futurelab's Open Access licence (see open access policy for further details).
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Issues impacting games-based learning in formal secondary education
Mary Ulicsak, Keri Facer, Richard Sandford, Futurelab
Draft paper accepted by IJATL (January 2007)
This paper proposes a model for analysing the ways in which teachers negotiate the tensions between games narratives and curriculum objectives in incorporating commercial off-the-shelf computer games into formal educational practice.
Read games-based learning paper - web version (3 pages)
Read games-based learning paper - pdf version for best printing results (opens 410kb file in pdf format in same window)
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Simulations, learning and the metaverse: changing cultures in legal education
Paul Maharg, Glasgow Graduate School of Law, Martin Owen, Futurelab
Draft paper accepted by JILT (September 2006)
Simulation is one of the major applications of the web in entertainment and training, but has so far received little attention from HE and FE. It is becoming increasingly clear that simulations can be used for educational purposes, but how can they be used most effectively with students?
Read SIMPLE paper - web version (8 pages)
Read SIMPLE paper - pdf version for best printing results (opens 1.1mb file in pdf format in same window)
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Citizenship and new technology
Ben Williamson, Futurelab
citizED website, March 2006
One of citizED's series of briefing papers for student teachers, this paper suggests ways of using ICT that address both the implications of ICT use for individuals and society, as well as to allow children and young people to produce materials by using new digital tools.
The paper can be found at:
www.citized.info/index.php?strand=4&r_menu=brief
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Interdisciplinary collaboration: academia, research, industry and policy relations in the development of Wireless Sensing Networks in the US
Teresa Dillon, Futurelab
Draft chapter for report on DTI Global Watch Mission on Wireless Sensing Networks (Oct/Nov 2005)
Within US organisations and institutions emphasis is continually placed on multidisciplinary team collaboration, where the merging of interdisciplinary skills and expertise are considered driving forces of innovation and development. In many cases interdisciplinary work is considered as fundamental to the US successes in WSN and funding is actively sought to support such working scenarios. This chapter provides an overview of the key stakeholders operating within collaborative programmes and the underlying influences which contribute to creating and sustaining such working environments.
Read Interdisciplinary Collaboration paper - web version (3 pages)
Read Interdisciplinary Collaboration paper - pdf version for best printing results (opens 151kb file in pdf format in same window)
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Hail to the thief: the appropriation of music in the digital age
Teresa Dillon, Futurelab
In: O'Hara, K and Brown, B (forthcoming in 2005). Consuming Music Together: social and collaborative aspects of music consumption technologies. Springer
Within the 21st century new digital technologies are reinventing how we create, distribute and share music. This chapter attempts to explore how digital technologies are used and repurposed by people to create new forms of musical expression and connection.
Read Hail to the Thief paper - web version (7 pages)
Read Hail to the Thief paper - pdf version for best printing results (opens 181kb file in pdf format in same window)
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Life on the edge: supporting collaboration in location-based experiences
Steve Benford, Duncan Rowland, Martin Flintham, Adam Drozd (Mixed Reality Laboratory,
University of Nottingham); Richard Hull, Josephine Reid (Hewlett-Packard Laboratories); Jo Morrison, Keri Facer (Futurelab)
Paper presented at CHI 2005 (April 2-7, Portland, Oregon, USA)
We study a collaborative location-based game in which groups of 'lions' hunt together on a virtual savannah that is overlaid on an open playing field. The game implements a straight-forward approach to location-based triggering in which players must be in the same spatial locale in order to share information and act together. We propose techniques for extending locales to support more flexible grouping and also discuss the broader implications of our findings for location-based applications in general.
Read Life on the Edge paper - web version (7 pages)
Read Life on the Edge paper - pdf version for best printing results (opens 521kb file in pdf format in same window)
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Astroversity: an investigation into whether a computer game can provide a collaborative learning environment
Mary Ulicsak, Futurelab
Paper submitted to IFIP World Conference on Computers in Education (WCCE 2005) - do not cite without author's prior consent
It is generally accepted that video games are motivating and have the potential to support learning; however, their introduction into schools and classrooms has not been extensive. Barriers to the introduction of games include, amongst other things, the difficulties of relating games content to formal school curricula and the challenge of playing lengthy games within the segmented school timetable. Astroversity was designed to overcome these issues by focusing on the development of skills and competencies closely related to the UK National Curriculum, and by being designed in such a way as to enable small group learning within the time constraints of school settings.
Read Astroversity paper (no 2) - web version (5 pages)
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Astroversity - the development of a network learning game that teaches collaborative techniques
Mary Ulicsak, Futurelab; Jim Turner, ICDC
Draft paper accepted by CELDA 2004 - do not cite without authors' prior consent
This paper describes the design and development of a networked learning game: Astroversity. The game is designed to support the development of collaboration, planning and scientific analysis skills for 13-15 year-olds. The experience combines features of a mainstream computer game with scaffolding resources appropriate to the challenges set to encourage reflection on collaboration, planning and analytic processes. This paper discusses the game's objectives and the iterative design approach taken to develop the learning environment, including the ways in which early collaboration with users impacted on the development.
Read Astroversity paper (no 1) - web version (3 pages)
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Different worlds? A comparison of young people's home and school ICT use
N Kent and K Facer
Published in JCAL, Vol 20, pp440-455
This paper explores young people's access to and use of computers in the home and at school. Drawing on a questionnaire survey, conducted in 2001 and 2003 with over 1,800 children in the South-West of England, on group interviews in school with over 190 children and with visits to 11 families, the paper discusses: (1) children's current use of computers in the home and in school; 2) changing patterns of computer use in home and school between 2001 and 2003; (3) the impact of age, gender and socio-economic area on young people's
computer use in home and school.
Read Different Worlds paper - web version (9 pages)
Read Different Worlds paper - pdf version for best printing results (opens 228kb file in pdf format in same window)
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Savannah: mobile gaming and learning?
K Facer, R Joiner, D Stanton, J Reid, R Hull, D Kirk (2004)
Published in JCAL, Vol 20, pp399-409
This paper reports a study which attempts to explore how using mobile technologies in direct physical interaction with space and with other players can be combined with principles of engagement and self-motivation to create a powerful and engaging learning experience. We developed a mobile gaming experience designed to encourage the development of children's conceptual understanding of animal behaviour. Ten children (five boys and five girls) aged between 11 and 12 played and explored the game. The findings from this study offer interesting insights into the extent to which mobile gaming might be employed as a tool for supporting learning.
Read Savannah paper - web version (8 pages)
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'It's in the mix baby': exploring how meaning is created within music technology collaborations
Teresa Dillon, Futurelab
July 2004 draft - do not cite without author's prior consent
Across all UK secondary school subject areas, the proliferation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has changed the nature of learning. Music education now includes the use of technological and digital tools, such as programmable keyboards and computers, as key learning and music making instruments. Despite such usage there is relatively little understanding of the kinds of musical experiences and interactions such instruments might support.
Read It's in the Mix paper - web version (8 pages)
Read It's in the Mix paper - pdf version for best printing results (opens 239kb file in pdf format in same window)
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"How did it know we weren't talking?": an investigation into the impact of self-assessments & feedback in a group activity
Mary Ulicsak, Futurelab
January 2004 JCAL paper - do not cite without author's prior consent
The paper describes a model designed to support the development of children's group skills by explicitly scaffolding reflection on collaboration and providing feedback using the children's self-assessment of these skills. The model incorporates existing training schemes, including procedural prompting, assigning roles, modelling exchanges, and giving feedback. This paper then reports a study that compared 26 9 and 10 year-old children who used a computer-based implementation of this model with 25 children who did not use the system, and discusses the implications of the findings.
Read self-assessments paper - web version (5 pages)
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Appropriating educational new media: ventriloquism in Virtual Puppeteers and parody in Tableaux
Ben Williamson, Teresa Dillon and Martin Owen, Futurelab
November 2003 draft - do not cite without authors' prior consent
The proliferation of digital technologies in recent years has changed the conventional notion of what 'literacy' means, and led to much speculation on an educational future in which children grow up 'multiliterate'. Regarding literacy as both a multiple set of skills and cache of linguistic resources, this paper examines two recent educational software prototypes developed in association with Futurelab, and asks what literacy practices were mobilised by the young people who used them. It argues that the projects provided the children with the potential to be creative and imaginative, but also evaluative and critical in their 'new literacy' processes.
Read Appropriating Educational New Media paper - web version (7 pages)
Read Appropriating Educational New Media paper - pdf version for best printing results (opens 166kb file in pdf format in same window)
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Screenplay: Children and Computing in the Home
Keri Facer, Rosamund Sutherland, John Furlong and Ruth Furlong
(RoutledgeFalmer, 2003)
Current school-age children are seen as the first 'net generation' with the resources of the world at their fingertips. This book, based on one of the most in-depth research projects ever carried out on the use of children's technologies in the home, questions this assumption. The authors filter and assess their findings accessibly and in direct relation to what's happening right now on home and school computers.
Copies can be ordered from www.routledgefalmer.com
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More than 'just a game': the implications for schools of children's computer games communities
Ben Williamson and Keri Facer, Futurelab
June 2003 draft - since published in Education, Communication and Information, Vol 4, No 2/3, November 2004, pp253-268
At the present time there is significant interest in the application of games technology within educational settings. Policy makers, teachers and educational software designers, in particular, are increasingly interested in exploiting the engagement that computer games are seen to generate amongst children for more traditional educational objectives. Much of this attention, however, is focused on the games interface. Drawing on recent research, this paper argues that formal education settings might also benefit from understanding the social practices that develop around computer games play outside school.
Read More Than Just a Game paper - web version (6 pages)
Read More Than Just a Game paper - pdf version for best printing results (opens 187kb file in pdf format in same window)
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Bridging or broadening the digital divide: interfacing the experience of learning for the next decade
Ben Williamson, Futurelab
(Becta website, 2003)
This paper looks at the barriers to learning that children may encounter in an online environment and discusses how interface design aesthetics can promote inclusivity and accessibility. In particular, the implications for presenting information through broadband-enabled internet are considered, alongside the need for greater participatory design.
The paper can be found at:
www.becta.org.uk/page_documents/research/digidiv_williamson.pdf
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Beyond language: exploring the potential of multi-modal research
Keri Facer, Futurelab
DRAFT discussion paper presented at IFIP conference, Manchester, July 2002
Studies of literacy in the digital age increasingly highlight the need to pay attention to the multi-modality of children's meaning-making activities. Research into young people's computer use, however, remains predominantly text and language based. The research techniques that will be discussed in this paper derive from two major ESRC projects - Screen Play and InterActive Education. In both projects young people were asked to produce pictures alongside written responses, and in the Screen Play project they were also provided with cameras to construct an account of the role of technology in their lives outside school. This paper will examine the potential for using images and photographs as a standard research technique and assessing the contribution of these tools to the repertoire of research tools available to researchers in the field.
Read Beyond Language paper - web version (5 pages)
Read Beyond Language paper - pdf version for best printing results (opens 294kb file in pdf format in same window)
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What do we mean by the digital divide? Exploring the roles of access, relevance and resource networks
Keri Facer, Futurelab
(Becta website, 2002)
Often with debates on the digital divide, we begin by assuming that we have a clear understanding of what it means to 'participate in the digital age' and immediately begin to develop strategies to overcome inequalities without ever asking questions such as: what are the factors that contribute to being 'computer literate', to owning a computer, to finding a role for computers in day-to-day lives? We start off by hunting for 'absences', for things that 'don't happen', and by trying to remedy these. This paper takes a slightly different tack by focusing on the question; 'what are some of the factors that may contribute to regular computer use?'. It then goes on to examine the ways in which these different factors may inter-relate to disadvantage or privilege different sectors of the population.
This is one of a collection of papers from the Toshiba/Becta Digital Divide Seminar held in August 2002. The papers can be found at:
www.becta.org.uk/page_documents/research/digidivseminar.pdf |
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