Learning Activities with Semantic Hypermedia in Higher Education António Carvalho Maneira Tese de Doutoramento em Media Digitais 2014 1 Thesis submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Digital Media, under scientific supervision of Prof. Carlos Correia, Ph.D, Prof. João Correia de Freitas, Ph.D and Prof. Joan Hughes, Ph.D. Tese apresentada para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Doutor em Media Digitais, realizada sob orientação científica de Prof. Carlos Correia, Ph.D, Prof. João Correia de Freitas, Ph.D e Prof. Joan Hughes, Ph.D. Financial support from: i To my parents. iii Acknowledgements Although doing a dissertation can be a long, lonely process, fortunately it is not done alone. Along the path, many were those who supported and encouraged me. I want to express my profound gratitude for their enormous personal generosity and contribution. This study could only be complete with their help and support. I am sincerely grateful to my advisors, Professor Carlos Correia, Professor João Correia de Freitas and Professor Joan Hughes for enabling this research with their support and guidance. The work developed would not be possible without full commitment and the support from diverse institutions starting with the main support given by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia with a fellowship (reference SFRH/ BD/33917/2009), the support of the UT Austin | Portugal Program and Colab, the Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Centro de Investigação para as Tecnologias Interactivas, Unidade de Investigação Educação e Desenvolvimento, Faculdade de Belas Artes da Universidade de Lisboa and Univeristy of Texas at Austin. This work was done with the contributions of many professors around the globe I would like to thank all the professors that contributed with their knowledge and perspectives namely Nuno Correia, Vitor Teodoro, Mariana Gaio Alves, Scott Wilson, Adrian Miles, Terry Anderson, Glorianna Davenport, João Sá Água, Kathleen Tyner, Craig Watkins, Neal Daugherty, Teresa Chambel, Maria João Gamito, Mónica Mendes, Paul Resta, Andrew Garrisson, Tom Schatz, Karen Kosher and Sharon Strover. For all the discussions and ideas turned into action I thank to my Ph.D fellows Luís Frias and Paulo Nuno Vicente. For all the support from Colab I thank to Carolina Enes and Conceição Capelo in Portugal and to Karen Gustafson in USA. For all the help finding needed references I thank to Janelle Hedstrom from Perry-Castañeda Library. Using Korsakow in this work was extremely inspiring and for that I thank to David Reich, Matt Soar and Florian Thalhofer for their presentations and insight about the application also concerning ideas on programming issues I thank to Paulo Matos. While it is not feasible or even possible for ethical reasons to publish all your names here, I want to express my gratitude to all the professors and students that participated in the research projects with all their enthusiasm and their thoughts. This research project often obliged to a voluntary exile, physical as well as intellectual and emotional. I thank to all the friends who supported me along the way namely Andreia, Daniel, Marta, Patrícia and Mónica. A special thank to João Fernandes with whom I could always count on to discuss issues that related to this research. I would like to thank my family, in particular the support from Silvia, Fernando, Concha and for their patience, stamina and time spent proof reading this research my brother Zé, my cousin Catarina and to Elena. I would like to thank my parents for their unconditional love and support and to my life partner, María, for all the persistence in making these last years lighter. v Abstract The increasing use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in diverse professional and personal contexts calls for new knowledge, and a set of abilities, competences and attitudes, for an active and participative citizenship. In this context it is acknowledged that universities have an important role innovating in the educational use of digital media to promote an inclusive digital literacy. The educational potential of digital technologies and resources has been recognized by both researchers and practitioners. Multiple pedagogical models and research approaches have already contributed to put in evidence the importance of adapting instructional and learning practices and processes to concrete contexts and educational goals. Still, academic and scientific communities believe further investments in ICT research is needed in higher education. This study focuses on educational models that may contribute to support digital technology uses, where these can have cognitive and educational relevance when compared to analogical technologies. A teaching and learning model, centered in the active role of the students in the exploration, production, presentation and discussion of interactive multimedia materials, was developed and applied using the internet and exploring emergent semantic hypermedia formats. The research approach focused on the definition of design principles for developing class activities that were applied in three different iterations in undergraduate courses from two institutions, namely the University of Texas at Austin, USA and the University of Lisbon, Portugal. The analysis of this study made possible to evaluate the potential and efficacy of the model proposed and the authoring tool chosen in the support of metacognitive skills and attitudes related to information structuring and management, storytelling and communication, using computers and the internet. Keywords: semantic hypermedia, higher education, design-based research, digital storytelling, internet Resumo A crescente utilização das tecnologias da informação e comunicação (TIC) nos mais diversos contextos profissionais e pessoais requer um conjunto de novos conhecimentos, capacidades, competências e atitudes para uma cidadania ativa e participativa. Neste enquadramento defende-se que as instituições do ensino superior têm um papel importante no sentido de promover uma literacia digital inclusiva, inovando na utilização educativa dos media digitais. O potencial educativo das tecnologias e conteúdos digitais tem sido reconhecido por muitos investigadores e professores, havendo no entanto a consciência junto da comunidade académica e científica, da necessidade de mais investimentos no estudo da utilização de TIC no ensino superior. A multiplicidade de modelos pedagógicos e de abordagens de investigação têm contribuído para evidenciar a importância de adaptar as práticas e processos de ensino e aprendizagem aos contextos e objetivos educativos concretos. Este estudo centra-se em modelos educativos que permitam potenciar a utilização das tecnologias digitais em aspetos em que os contributos destas, do ponto de vista cognitivo ou educacional, se fazem diferenciar com mais evidência de outras tecnologias analógicas. Recorrendo à exploração de formatos de hipermédia semântico emergentes e ao uso da internet, desenvolveu-se e aplicou-se um modelo de ensino-aprendizagem centrado no papel ativo do aluno na exploração, produção, apresentação e discussão de conteúdos multimédia interativos. A abordagem de investigação focou a definição de princípios de design de atividades integradas na prática letiva tendo sido realizadas três implementações em disciplinas da oferta curricular de duas instituições do ensino superior, designadamente na Universidade do Texas em Austin, USA e na Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal. Foi possível verificar o potencial e a eficácia do modelo proposto e da aplicação autora escolhida para suporte e motivação dos alunos no desenvolvimento de competências e atitudes metacognitivas associadas à gestão e estruturação de informação, à narrativa e comunicação com recurso aos computadores e à internet. Palavras-chave: hipermédia semântico, ensino superior, metodologias de desenvolvimento, narrativas digitais, internet vii Learning Activities with Semantic Hypermedia in Higher Education Table of contents Chapter I 1. Introduction 1 1.1. Information and communication design in an increasing digital world....................... 2 1.1.1. Information “everywhere” 3 1.1.2. Social network mediation 7 1.1.3. The Social Semantic Web and Hypermedia 10 1.2. New ways of using digital media in higher education .................................................. 14 1.2.1 Education for a post-industrial society 16 1.2.2 One further step in hypermedia development: sequential semantics 23 1.3. This thesis and research study ........................................................................................ 29 1.3.1. The teaching and learning model design 30 1.3.2. The research questions 31 1.3.3. The thesis layout 31 Chapter II 2. Teaching and learning with digital media 33 2.1. Audiovisuals, multimedia and the human brain .......................................................... 33 2.1.1. Cognitive load and moving images and sound 34 2.1.2. The cognitive contribution of interactivity 42 2.1.3. The semantic hypermedia effect 51 2.2 Action and knowledge construction ............................................................................... 54 2.2.1. The constructivist contributions for a learning model 55 2.2.2. Social cognitive theories and cooperative learning 59 2.2.3. Other contributions for a problem based learning model 69 2.3 Teaching strategies and systemic overviews ................................................................