Software

DigiTile

DigiTile is a construction kit for engaging mathematical concepts of fractions and symmetry by designing colorful mosaic tiles. It was created for the ShareIT Project as part of an effort to understand how shareable interfaces (in this case, an interactive tabletop) can support collaborative learning.

DigiTile is based on DigiQuilt by K.K. Lamberty, University of Minnesota, Morris.

Rick, J., Rogers, Y., Haig, C., and Yuill, N. (2009). Learning by doing with shareable interfaces. Children, Youth and Environments, 19(1):321–342. [download]
Rick, J. and Rogers, Y. (2008). From DigiQuilt to DigiTile: Adapting educational technology to a multi-touch table. In Proceedings of TABLETOP '08, pages 79–86. IEEE Computer Society. [download]

OurSpace

OurSpace is a seating allocation application for the DiamondTouch tabletop. It was developed to study how children use an interactive tabletop to complete a design task that is both engaging (the children find the task intrinsically motivating) and challenging (it is relatively difficult to arrive at an acceptable solution). In the research study, groups of three children worked together to position tables in their classroom and to seat students around those tables. Each group completed the task twice, once in single-touch mode and once in multiple-touch mode. In single-touch mode, only one participant could interact with the interface at a time. In multiple-touch mode, all three could interact simultaneously. By comparing across the two conditions, we were able to investigate the value of concurrent use for issues of engagement, use, gender differences, and equity of participation.

Harris, A., Rick, J., Bonnett, V., Yuill, N., Fleck, R., Marshall, P. and Rogers, Y. (2009). Around the table: Are multiple-touch surfaces better than single-touch for children's collaborative interactions? In Proceedings of CSCL 2009, pages 335–344. ISLS. [pdf]
Rick, J., Harris, A., Marshall, P., Fleck, R., Yuill, N. and Rogers, Y. (2009). Children designing together on a multi-touch tabletop: An analysis of spatial orientation and user interactions. In Proceedings of IDC 2009, pages 106–114. ACM Press. [download]
Marshall, P., Fleck, R., Harris, A. Rick, J., Hornecker, E., Rogers, Y., Yuill, N. and Dalton, N. S. (2009). Fighting for control: Children's embodied interactions when using physical and digital representations. In Proceedings of CHI 2009, pages 2149–2152. ACM Press. [download]

AniAniWeb

AniAniWeb is a server application for designing personal (those belonging to an individual) home pages. AniAniWeb extends a wiki approach to personal home pages. While wikis are useful for group collaboration, users of personal home pages have different needs. For instance, looks become more important and access control becomes a more challenging concern.

"Wiki wiki" means quick in Hawaiian creole. Ward Cunningham named his technology "WikiWikiWeb," because the quickest way to create a website is to ask anyone in the world to also be an editor of the site. To pay homage to the WikiWikiWeb, I named this technology "AniAniWeb" (or ani for short). In Hawaiian creole, "aniani" means mirror. While static home pages tend to be like a portrait, anis are more alive and other people in the periphery can contribute, even if the main focus is on the person in the mirror.

Rick, J. (2007). AniAniWeb: A wiki approach to personal home pages. In Proceedings of WikiSym '07, pages 99–118. ACM Press. [pdf]
Rick, J. (2007). Personal home pages in academia: The medium, its adopters, and their practices. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA. [download]
Rick, J. and Guzdial, M. (2004). Improving personal home pages to support learning as becoming and belonging. In Proceedings of ICLS 2004, page 631. [paper pdf, poster pdf]

Collaborative Websites

CoWeb / Squeak Wiki (Swiki) is a server application for creating collaborative websites, conceptually based on Ward Cunningham's WikiWikiWeb. CoWeb focuses on educational activities, such as complementing classroom lecture with a out-of-class collaborative activities—pin-ups, close reading, discussion, and group projects.

CoWebs have been used in over 300 classes at Georgia Tech in fields such as architecture, chemical engineering, mathematics, computer science, etc. Because it is an open-source project, it has developed a strong presence at other universities (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of Colorado—Boulder, etc.) and private companies. A recent Google search on Swiki produced over one million hits. To download the software, visit the Swiki Swiki. CoWeb use has received two awards:

2001 Teaching and Learning Technologies for Rhetoric and Writing. McGraw-Hill Technology Design Competition. Computers and Writing Conference. (for CoWeb use in English composition; award shared jointly with Lissa Holloway-Attaway, Literature Communications and Technology)
1999 Education Honors Award. American Institute of Architects. (for CoWeb use in architecture)

Rick, J. and Guzdial, M. (2006). Situating CoWeb: A scholarship of application. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 1(1):89–115. [pdf]
Guzdial, M., Rick, J. and Kehoe, C. (2001). Beyond adoption to invention: Teacher-created collaborative activities in higher education. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 10(3):265–279. [pdf]
Guzdial, M., Rick, J. and Kerimbaev, B. (2000). Recognizing and supporting roles in CSCW. In Proceedings of CSCW 2000, pages 261–268. ACM Press. [pdf]
Craig, D. L., Haq, S., Khan, S., Zimring, C., Kehoe, C., Rick, J. and Guzdial, M. (2000). Using an unstructured collaboration tool to support peer interaction in large college classes. In Proceedings of ICLS 2000, pages 178–184. [pdf]

AudioExplorer

AudioExplorer is a Squeak application for exploring the physics of sound and music by examining the frequency domain. The frequency domain is a transformation of the sound signal into its frequency components. Since our ear perceives frequencies, examining the frequency domain is a useful way to understand the properties of music. The system consists of a music keyboard giving sound input into the computer; the AudioExplorer software displays the signal on the screen, which can then be analyzed by the learners.

AudioExplorer is a tool for inquiry-based learning. The environment gives the users the opportunity to explore the subject (audio and music) and thereby discover the principles of the subject rather than passively learn about them. Thus, learning is active and students are encouraged to construct their own meaning.

Rick, J. and Lamberty, K.K. (2005). Medium-based design: Extending a medium to create an exploratory learning environment. Interactive Learning Environments, 13(3):179–212. [pdf]
Rick, J. and Lamberty, K.K. (2004). Medium-based design: Supporting bricoleur designers. In Proceedings of ICLS 2004, page 630. [paper pdf, poster pdf]
Rick, J. (2002). AudioExplorer: Multiple linked representations for convergence. In Proceedings of CSCL 2002, pages 535–536. [pdf]