Exploring creative thinking in graphically mediated synchronous dialogues

This paper reports on an aspect of the EC funded Argunaut project which researched and developed awareness tools for moderators of online dialogues. In this study we report on an investigation into the nature of creative thinking in online dialogues and whether or not this creative thinking can be coded for and recognized automatically such that moderators can be alerted when creative thinking is occurring or when it has not occurred after a period of time. We outline a dialogic theory of creativity, as the emergence of new perspectives from the interplay of voices, and the testing of this theory using a range of methods including a coding scheme which combined coding for creative thinking with more established codes for critical thinking, artificial intelligence pattern-matching techniques to see if our codes could be read automatically from maps and ‘key event recall’ interviews to explore the experience of participants. Our findings are that: (1) the emergence of new perspectives in a graphical dialogue map can be recognized by our coding scheme supported by a machine pattern-matching algorithm in a way that can be used to provide awareness indicators for moderators; (2) that the trigger events leading to the emergence of new perspectives in the online dialogues studied were most commonly disagreements and (3) the spatial representation of messages in a graphically mediated synchronous dialogue environment such as Digalo may offer more affordance for creativity than the much more common scrolling text chat environments. All these findings support the usefulness of our new account of creativity in online dialogues based on dialogic theory and demonstrate that this account can be operationalised through machine coding in a way that can be turned into alerts for moderators.     

A dialogic understanding of the relationship between CSCL and teaching thinking skills

How to teach flexible thinking and learning skills, particularly creativity and the skill of “learning to learn,” is a key concern for CSCL in the context of the emerging Networked Society. The currently dominant paradigms for supporting pedagogical design within CSCL, including socio-cultural theory, are limited in the support that they can offer to the project of teaching general thinking skills. This paper uses critical literature review, conceptual analysis, and evidence from case studies to argue for the value of a dialogic interpretative framework that links the goal of teaching thinking with the method of CSCL. The evidence reviewed suggests that dialogue is itself the primary thinking skill from which all others are derived. It is argued from this that dialogic theory offers a possible solution to the problem of how to conceptualize general thinking skills for CSCL: this is that teaching dialogue as an end in itself promotes the learning of general thinking skills. Implications of the proposed framework for pedagogical design are brought out through case studies illustrating the use of CSCL to broaden and deepen dialogic spaces of reflection.     

用语音卡实现电话与电脑的信息交互

讨论了Dialogic语音卡开发库的编程模式，事件响应的主控制程序，电话声音播放和按键接收，多个语音的合成，播放和按键接收属性及终止条件的设置，总结出主要的编程步骤。     

基于单片机的语音系统通用开发方法研究

本文介绍了一种新的语音系统的通用开发方法。采用微软公司SPEECH SDK在上位机PC上实现文字-语音转换（TEXT TO SPEECH），省略了采样；将音源经DialogicADPCM算法压缩为*.VOX格式的文件，通过串口写入到闪烁存贮器中，下位机MCU用于语音数据读取和播放，响应实时需要。简化了开发过程，为类似系统的开发提供了新思路。     

Moved to learn: The effects of interactivity in a Kinect-based literacy game for beginning readers

Reading to young children has a number of benefits, including supporting the acquisition of vocabulary and literacy skills. Digital reading games, including ones with new modes of interface such as the Kinect for Xbox, may provide similar benefits in part by allowing dynamic in-game activities. However, these activities may also be distracting and detract from learning. Children (ages 5–7 years, N = 39) were randomly assigned to either i) jointly read a story with an adult, ii) have the story read by a character in a Kinect game, or iii) have the story read by a character in a Kinect game plus in-game activities. Both Kinect-Activities and Book Reading groups had significant gains for High Frequency Words, Active Decoding, and Total Reading Score, but only Kinect-Activities group had significant gain for Sight words (p < .05). Overall, these findings are encouraging for the next generation of digital literacy games.     

Dialogic teaching and iPads in the EAP classroom

Mobile learning technology in the form of iPads has gained considerable attention recently in the literature on pedagogy and learning. This has led to a change in the roles of teachers and students, and the nature of the classroom interaction. What is not clear so far however, is how iPads have changed the nature of classroom talk and dialogic teaching. The present study aimed to examine the impact of iPad use on the opportunities for dialogic teaching in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) classes in an English medium university in the United Arab Emirates. The study reveals that although opportunities for dialogic teaching are both created and inhibited in classes utilizing the iPads, the most influential contributor to opportunities and restrictions lies depends on whether the teachers and students have adopted a dialogic stance. The study also revealed the need to examine dialogic teaching within the specific sociocultural and educational context of learning.     

Leadership going social: How U.S. nonprofit executives engage publics on Twitter

This study explored how nonprofit executives in the U.S. engaged with online publics through various communication strategies. We investigated the extent to which nonprofit executives leveraged 1) digital dialogic principles, 2) social presence strategies, and 3) message tactics. In addition, this study attempted to explore how different communication strategies influenced publics’ digital engagement with nonprofit leaders. We conducted a content analysis on 700 Twitter posts from 35 nonprofit executive leaders who possess an active Twitter presence and 195 public comments. These executives led America’s largest nonprofits across a wide range of religious, educational, scientific, sports, and social welfare organizations. The results showed that nonprofit executives employed some degree of the four dialogic principles and capitalized on each of the three types of social presence strategies evenly. Regarding message function, nonprofit executives were most active in disseminating information and creating an online community. Findings regarding the associations between communication strategies and public engagement remain mixed.     

When retweets persuade: The persuasive effects of dialogic retweeting and the role of social presence in organizations’ Twitter-based communication

Research has shown that organizations tend to use Twitter primarily in a one-way, monologic manner and fall short of using the platform’s technological affordances to engage the public in dialogue. At the same time, relatively little research has addressed the specific persuasive outcomes that organizations could accrue by using Twitter to communicate with the public in a more dialogic way. We investigated the persuasive effect of an organization’s dialogic retweeting (conceptualized as retweeting of user mentions addressed to the organization) by drawing on the concept of social presence and the theory of reasoned action. In an online experiment conducted with an adult sample of U.S. Twitter users, participants were randomly assigned to view either a fictitious organization’s dialogic retweets or the same organization’s monologic tweets of identical content. We found that the dialogic retweets, when compared to the monologic tweets from the organization, induced a higher level of social presence, which, in turn, led to a higher level of subjective norms, more favorable attitudes toward the behavior advocated by the organization in the messages, and greater intention to adopt the behavior. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

The scope of digital image media in art education

In this case study of forms 7–9 in a Swedish school, the subject conceptions of and teaching practices in art subjects of schoolteachers and pupils are studied, in particular with regard to digital media. How the core content of a subject is conceived is compared to the importance of digital media in the teaching practice. For three years a class was followed whose teachers taught the pupils in both the art subject and in a local optional subject called Media. The method of triangulation involving participant observations, focus talks, interviews and questionnaires was employed in order to study the role of digital media in different subjects and their actual use by pupils. The results show that the school subject paradigm in the subject of art is chiefly connected to image production for developing aesthetic-practical skills. Traditional manual production is encouraged, thereby contributing to the limited use of digital media in the subject of art. Frame factors such as time and material also contribute to the limited use of digital media in the subject of art. Unlike the subject of art, the optional subject of media is conceived of more as a communication subject, and digital technology for image production is encouraged. In general, the use of digital media in the school is mainly guaranteed by the school's media plan. The role of the art subject is not prominent in this plan, but its teachers are active in implementing digital media in other contexts than within the framework of the art subject. In this study the representatives of the subject of art hardly used digital image processing at all in their teaching, but did so to a great extent in the optional subject of media. This made it clear that digital media in the subject of art in this school are not regarded as a prioritised media-specific competence. Offering and being able to provide a larger repertoire of digital media in the teaching of art could contribute to a change of the subject paradigm in a more clearly communicative than aesthetic-practical direction.