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Browsing by Author "Defazio, Joseph"
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Item ACTIVE READING ON TABLET TEXTBOOKS(2015-04-17) Palilonis, Jennifer Ann; Defazio, Joseph; Bolchini, Davide; Butler, Darrell; Voida, AmyTo study a text, learners often engage in active reading. Through active reading, learners build an analysis by annotating, outlining, summarizing, reorganizing and synthesizing information. These strategies serve a fundamental meta-cognitive function that allows content to leave strong memory traces and helps learners reflect, understand, and recall information. Textbooks, however, are becoming more complex as new technologies change how they are designed and delivered. Interactive, touch-screen tablets offer multi-touch interaction, annotation features, and multimedia content as a browse-able book. Yet, such tablet textbooks-in spite of their increasing availability in educational settings-have received little empirical scrutiny regarding how they support and engender active reading. To address this issue, this dissertation reports on a series of studies designed to further our understanding of active reading with tablet textbooks. An exploratory study first examined strategies learners enact when reading and annotating in the tablet environment. Findings indicate learners are often distracted by touch screen mechanics, struggle to effectively annotate information delivered in audiovisuals, and labor to cognitively make connections between annotations and the content/media source from which they originated. These results inspired SMART Note, a suite of novel multimedia annotation tools for tablet textbooks designed to support active reading by: minimizing interaction mechanics during active reading, providing robust annotation for multimedia, and improving built-in study tools. The system was iteratively developed through several rounds of usability and user experience evaluation. A comparative experiment found that SMART Note outperformed tablet annotation features on the market in terms of supporting learning experience, process, and outcomes. Together these studies served to extend the active reading framework for tablet textbooks to: (a) recognize the tension between active reading and mechanical interaction; (b) provide designs that facilitate cognitive connections between annotations and media formats; and (c) offer opportunities for personalization and meaningful reorganization of learning material.Item CHARACTERISTICS OF MUSUEM EXHIBIT LEARNING OBJECTS IN 21st CENTURY?(Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, 2012-04-13) Waterhouse, Sonya; Defazio, JosephIn contrast to traditional museum brick and mortar exhibits, visitors now experience online museums where two and three dimensional digital artifacts convey the ideas and knowledge of the curator. Prior studies examined how visitors gained new knowledge and experience through learning theories of passive and incremental knowledge versus active learning constructs incorporated by museums. The objective of this literature review is to examine how twenty-first century museum exhibits evolved from historical/aesthetic representations into learning objects using cognitive load and constructivist theories. Results indicate that some museums appear unwilling or unable to evolve or adapt constructivist theories that prioritize delivery of facts and instead pursue popularity and increased revenues through high-profile exhibitions. Future investigations might focus on reasons preventing change and cutting edge museums that implement multi-user virtual environments.Item The Effects of a Computer-Based Driving Game on Hypoglycemia Education Among Adolescents with Type-1 Diabetes(2011-02) Stupiansky, Nathan; Faiola, Anthony; Defazio, JosephItem Enhancing Creativity in Teaching and Learning in Online, Face-to-Face and Hybrid Courses(2014-10-10) Hook, Sara Anne; Tennant, Felisa; Jones, Josette; Defazio, JosephThis engaging session will feature four faculty members from one school who have incorporated a number of pedagogical and technological approaches into their courses to encourage creativity in their students while continuing to nurture their own creativity as a way to stay motivated, innovative and engaged as teachers. It will include an interactive online activities for participants with an opportunity for self-reflection and illustrate some options for encouraging and assessing creativity in higher education. The session will review current research on creativity and distill the findings into practical applications for generating a learner-centered environment in any kind of classroom setting.Item Explore the relations between personality and gamification(2018-01-22) Jia, Yuan; Bolchini, Davide; Voida, Stephen; MacDorman, Karl; Defazio, JosephSuccessful gamification motivates users to engage in systems using game-like experiences. However, a one-size-fits-all approach to gamification is often unsuccessful; prior studies suggest that personality serves as a key differentiator in the effectiveness of the approach. To advance the understanding of personality differences and their influence on users’ behavior and motivation in gamification, this dissertation is comprised of three studies that: 1) explore the relationships among individuals’ personality traits and preferences for different gamification features through an online survey; 2) investigate how people with different personality traits respond to the motivational affordances in a gamified application over a period of time through a diary study; and 3) reveal how individuals respond differentially to different kinds of leaderboard experiences based on their leaderboard rankings, the application domain, and the individuals’ personality traits through their responses to 9 dynamic leaderboards. The results from the first study show that extraversion and emotional stability are the two primary personality traits that differentiate users’ preferences for gamification. Among the 10 types of motivational affordances, extraverts are more likely to be motivated by Points, Levels, and Leaderboards. However, the results from the second (diary) study indicate that, after the first week, extraverts’ preferences for Points decreased. The motivation effects of Points and Leaderboards changed over the course of using the gamified application. The results from the third study confirm the findings from the first two studies about extraversion and revealed that ranking and domain differences are also effective factors in users’ experiences of Leaderboards in gamification. Design guidelines for gamification are presented based on the results of each of the three studies. Based on a synthesis of the results from these three studies, this dissertation proposes a conceptual model for gamification design. The model describes not only the impact of personality traits, domain differences, and users’ experience over time, but also illustrates the importance of considering individual differences, application context, and the potential significance of user persistence in gamification design. This research contributes to the HCI and gamification communities by uncovering factors that will affect the way that people respond to gamification systems, considered holistically.Item Health Educational Games and Their Effectiveness Among Children(Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, 2014-04-11) Hill, Jacqueline; Defazio, JosephAfter the release of the health educational games, Bronkie the Bronchiasaurus and Packy and Marlon in 1995, the production of health educational games for children started to increase. Over the past couple of decades, health educational video games on the topics of Asthma, Cancer, Diabetes and Risk Prevention, have been proven to be an effective form of learning for children. The purpose of this study is to analyze the effectiveness of these health education games among children. For this study, search engines such as Google, Bing, and Google Scholar were used to find health educational games on the topics of Asthma, Cancer, Diabetes, and Risk Prevention. In order to produce the best results, several searches were conducted using a series of keyword identifiers. Keyword searches were completed to discover content in the areas of frequency of use, effectiveness, and evidence-based outcomes from these games. To date, twenty-three health educational games were found. Out of twenty-three games, twenty-one were successful in their reported effectiveness. Our research also shows that some hospitals around the United States have started to incorporate these games into their patients’ regimen because of the degree of success reported.Item Healthcare Game Design: Behavioral Modeling of Serious Gaming Design for Children with Chronic Diseases(2009) Kharrazi, Hadi; Faiola, Anthony; Defazio, JosephThis article introduces the design principles of serious games for chronic patients based on behavioral models. First, key features of the targeted chronic condition (Diabetes) are explained. Then, the role of psychological behavioral models in the management of chronic conditions is covered. After a short review of the existing health focused games, two recent health games that are developed based on behavioral models are overviewed in more detail. Furthermore, design principles and usability issues regarding the creation of these health games are discussed. Finally, the authors conclude that designing healthcare games based on behavioral models can increase the usability of the game in order to improve the effectiveness of the game’s desired healthcare outcomes.Item Identifying Cross-Cultural Differences of Emoticons In Computer-Mediated Communication: A Comparison of North American (U.S.) and South Korean Emotional Responses to Emoticons(2011-01-11) Cha, Young-Joo; Faiola, Anthony; Defazio, Joseph; Jones, JosetteThe lack of physical communication cues, such as facial expressions, in text-only communication has prompted the creation of emoticons to represent feelings. Moreover, the emoticon has become a new “cultural” language adopted by a community of users who find emoticons useful for expressing an emotional state during their online communication. Using emoticons in computer-mediated communication (CMC), which includes any means of communication on the Internet, especially instant messaging (IM) programs, helps users convey and enhance the underlying emotional aspects of their communication facilitating user communication by providing non-verbal cues and clues to clarify a message. Although many researchers have studied the differences in the use of emoticons between males and females and different age groups and some even report cross-cultural differences and similarities between CMC and face-to-face (FTF) communication such research is not sufficient to understand the effective use of emoticons. The current research explores three categories of emoticons - textual, pictorial, and animated emoticons – to ask the broad question: Do North Americans and South Koreans use emoticons differently? The research examines the cross-cultural differences involved in using emoticons, focusing on the visual aspect of online communication that provides emotional cues to understand the differences in their use. Textual emoticons and pictorial emoticons of MSN messenger are used in this study's questionnaires. The results indicate the cross-cultural differences of emoticon use and recognition between North Americans and South Koreans.Item The Impact of Participation and Attendance on Undergraduate Student Performance in Face-to-Face and Online Courses(2015-11-21) Zhu, Liugen; Defazio, Joseph; Huang, Edgar; Hook, Sara AnneThis presentation reports the results of a comprehensive study of policies on attendance and participation in face-to-face and online courses, with policies that range from strict to flexible, and correlate these policies with final course grades. The intent was to demonstrate the impact that these policies have on student motivation and student success. Participants will self-identify which category their attendance/participation policies falls into and reflect on how revising these policies can influence their own courses.Item Impact of Social Networking on Information Technology Sales Collaboration & LearningDecker, Eric R.; Defazio, JosephIn recent years the advent of social networking has exploded across the Internet. Online communities such as LinkedIn.com and Facebook.com have captured the attention of millions. These environments allow individuals to connect, communicate, and discover new virtual experiences with other people. In the age of Web 2.0, Internet users are redefining the rules of social interaction by leveraging a range of new technologies to create and sustain virtual communities based upon common interests. Communications channels such as blogs and Wikis, amplified by collaborative technologies such as social networking, provide powerful tools for sharing information and sustaining relationships across geographic borders and common areas of learning. What is often referred to as ‘collective intelligence,’ the body of knowledge created by these social online gatherings of like minds, can easily produce a ‘sum of the parts is greater than the whole’ effect. The purpose of this research is twofold: first, to evaluate how social networking impacts collaboration and learning within the high tech sales industry and; second to determine if a need exists for the development of an online social networking environment to address the particular interests of the Information Technology (IT) sales professional.