I’m working on the details of the study design of my multitasking pilot and have been doing some reading on the topic. There seems to be quite a few studies concerning the cognitive aspects of multitasking, but not so many concerning the social, interactional and conversational aspects. However, I have found a few very useful sources, such as Naomi Baron’s piece on Volume Control or John C. Tang’s on Ubiquitous Computing. I’m excited that I finally get to catch up on the theories and methodologies employed in these and other studies and try to relate it all to what I will be doing!

Today I gave another presentation for the informatics department in Lund via web camera on the topic of online presence. The contents of my talk were pretty much the same as last semester but this time we wanted to try a slightly different setup. Last year, we only had three users logged on, and my presentation was projected on a screen in the computer lab in Lund. In order for students to be able to give me some feedback without creating unnecessary feedback in the sound, last time they were given green and red cards to use for votes. This time around, all students got to sit at computers (some shared), and thus had access to the votes and smileys, as well as the text chat, in the platform we used. I was hoping that this would make the experience more interactive for the students, and some did use the text chat to ask me questions, but for the most part I felt that this session was less interactive than last one. One probable reason for this was that this time, I had planned for a discussion in Traveler after my presentation, and therefore I had kept this part of the session more like a regular lecture than as an interactive discussion. For example, last time, I asked the students yes and no questions so that they could use their vote cards, something I hardly did at all now. Another important contributing factor was that the students’ microphones didn’t work properly and that they didn’t each have a web camera, which resulted in differences in communicative power between us.

This time I did the presentation in HUMlab. I was a bit nervous about this before we got started, because there is always so much going on in the lab that I thought I would experience breaks in presence from my online conversation when something in the physical space would catch my attention (if someone would start playing the drum set that we have there, for instance…). It turned out I had nothing to worry about, but I wonder if I was as annoying to the other visitors of the lab as I sometimes find people speaking on their cell phones in public spaces… I wouldn’t know, since, just like an inconsiderate cell phone user, I was definitely not mentally present in my physical location.

I’ve found a very interesting article by Eli Dresner at Tel Aviv University: “Textual Multitasking in CMC: Implications and Applications” .

Here, Dresner (who btw seems to be working with a very interesting project), mainly discusses multitasking in textual interaction, but also compares this to face-to-face and oral interaction, and makes some good points concerning cognitive abilities and norms. The notion of “Conversational Multitasking” might be useful to describe the multiplex communicative patterns that I am interested in investigating. Really glad I found this!

In the local newspaper this morning I read about a hockey player finding out that he won’t be playing with the local team this year – via SMS. In the shorter version of the text, it was stated that this decision had later been revoked, which made me think about how different media seem to have different levels of seriousness attached to them. Is it the case that what you say via SMS doesn’t really count?

This all reminded me of a story I read a while ago about the debate in some Muslim countries concerning whether you should be able to announce via SMS to your significant other that you want a divorce. In Singapore, it was ruled against this, because of ” ‘elements of doubt’ over the sender’s identity and sincerity”, whereas other countries have decided that as long as you follow the traditional procedures, this is a valid strategy. (Oh, and I can’t help to point out that only the men can announce the divorce… Trying to stick somewhat to the topic, I’ll refrain from picking up on that here, though.)

If we return to the hockey drama, once you read the longer piece in the paper, you get a somewhat more nuanced picture. For example, you learn about how the SMS was only the final solution after not having been able to get in touch with the player and his manager over the phone. Other problems that become apparent when looking at the longer piece is that there have been some misunderstandings, and that the SMS writer might have been misquoted. In addition, as a counterargument to my first claim that this decision was revoked because it was delivered via SMS, decisions do get revoked from time to time in all different contexts, even if they are delivered orally or in more formal text.

Nevertheless, I don’t see why decisions delivered via SMS should be less valid than other agreements. SMS does count. However, as this hockey drama shows, there is an overhanging risk of miscommunication here. Therefore, and also simply because there has to be some limits as to how rude one can be when handling sensitive topics, my advice would be to take more important things f2f (or possibly over the phone if there is no way to meet), instead of cowardly avoiding confrontations.

Workshop for Doctoral Students – Interaction In Digital Environments

Workshop wiki

A workshop for doctoral students at Umea University with the theme “Interaction in Digital Environments” will take place on 21-22 August 2006. The workshop’s aim is to create a contact network between doctoral students who are doing research within this cross-disciplinary subject area. The workshop is primarily for doctoral students but we welcome anyone who is interested in this area.

This workshop will be arranged by a local doctoral student network (Digital Interaction Research Network – DIRN) at Umea University. The network is composed of doctoral students from various departments and faculties with a common interest in the study of interaction in digital environments.

The workshop will consist of lectures given by guest speakers and supervised work-in-progress seminars in which each participant will have the opportunity to present his or her ongoing research. The workshop’s languages are the Scandinavian languages and English.

The workshop will give doctoral students the possibility to:
- present their research in a relaxed and constructive environment
- get feedback from established researchers and doctoral colleagues
- get an overview of what doctoral students within this subject area are currently working on
- establish contacts with fellow doctoral students

The invited speakers are:
- Jill Walker, Department of Humanistic Informatics, University of Bergen
- T.L. Taylor, Center for Computer Games Research, IT University of Copenhagen
- Patrik Hernwall, School of Communication, Technology & Design, Sodertorn University College
- Patrik Svensson, HUMlab, Umea University

The workshop arrangers will pay for traveling participant’s costs for food and accommodations. The number of participants accepted to the workshop will be limited.

If this sounds interesting to you, please follow these instructions:
1. Visit our Wiki to read more about the network and the workshop: http://dirn.wikispaces.com/.
2. Indicate preliminary interst to participate in the workshop by adding your name on the wiki page that has been created for this purpose (”Preliminary workshop participants”).
3. Feel free to create a page of your own to present yourself and your research. This way, the Wiki will serve as a meeting point for everyone who has an interest in the subject area of the workshop, including those who cannot make it to Umea for the workshop.
3. By June 16 you should send your formal application (1-3 pages – see below) to daniel.skog@informatik.umu.se.
4. Those accepted to the workshop will be notified by 23 June. Here, you will also receive information about accommodation and how you can make travel arrangements.

You formally apply for the workshop by sending a 1-3 page document in which you describe your thesis subject and ongoing research and bring up issues you would like to discuss. As some of the doctoral students and guest lecturers have English as a native language you are welcome to write this information in English. Of course you may also write in any of the Scandinavian languages and we can help each other with translation and oral interpretation if necessary. This document is the only writing you will need to produce for the workshop. All documents will be distributed to all participants and in preparation for the workshop each participant is expected to read and prepare comments on some of the other texts.

Questions can be directed to therese.ornberg@humlab.umu.se or daniel.skog@informatik.umu.se.

Those of us in the doctoral student network DIRN at Umea University hope to see you in Umea in August!

Alison Hudson, Department of Interactive Media and Learning
Camilla Jonsson, Department of Education
Daniel Skog, Department of Informatics
Elza Dunkels, Department of Interactive Media and Learning
Jim Barrett, Department of Modern Languages, HUMlab
Stefan Blomberg, Department of Culture and Media, HUMlab
Stephanie Hendrick, Department of Modern Languages, HUMlab
Therese O. Berglund, Department of Modern Languages, HUMlab
Van Leavenworth, Department of Modern Languages, HUMlab

This workshop has received financial support from many different working units and institutions at Umea University. Money has been granted from Tvarvetenskapligt forum, HUMlab, The Faculty of Teacher Education, Department of Education, Department of Culture and Media and Department of Informatics.

For more information see: http://dirn.wikispaces.com.

I have just recently finished writing the first draft of a chapter for a forthcoming Swedish book on ICT in language education. Here, I discuss advantages and drawbacks of some different platforms for oral interaction online from a communicative affordances perspective, and in so doing I focus on both conversational structures and presence related issues. In this chapter, I finally get to disseminate the results of a number of questionnaires that were sent out to participants in ITAS gatherings in 2004-2005. I have also taken the opportunity to summarize some of the points that I think are most important to keep in mind when aiming for effective oral communication online. To give one example, since this type of interaction depends on traditional turn-taking it is important to be able to give feedback without interrupting. Often this is done via other modes and follows other conventions than those we are used to from face-to-face interaction. Different online environments provide different options for how to give this type of feedback, all with advantages and drawbacks (a shared text chat, for example, is a useful feature here). What they all have in common, though, is that in order to achieve effective communication it is necessary to get plenty of training in how to best make use of the communicative affordances the medium provides.