Enhancing reflection by collaboratively capturing experiences in a timeline

Abstract

In this thesis we have investigated how collaborative learning experiencescollected with mobile devices and represented in a timeline can help reflection.We have developed a prototype application on the Android platform in order tolook deeper into what kind of data that should be collected and how the data shouldbe visualized and interacted with. Today's mobile devices are powerful devices capable of capturing a variety ofinformation. Our investigation of related work and existing applications showedthat there are many applications developed for information collection. Todifferentiate from these applications, and support a central aspect of ourresearch question, reflection, we wanted the users to collaborate andperform actions on the collected data in order to promote reflection andenhancing learning experiences. We identified 5 high level requirements thatwe wanted the application to support; collection of experiences, being in theenvironment, representation in a timeline, collaborating on experiences andre-visiting experiences. All these requirements were achieved in the Timelineapplication. The functionality implemented was a result of taking advantage of the theoretical background, related work, evaluation and discussions with an expertin the area of reflection as well as co-operation with a EU project(MIRROR) thatare conducting research in the area of reflection.The resulting prototype was evaluated over 3 days in a real user setting duringa general assembly in MIRROR.From this evaluation, together with the work done in background theory andrelated work, we have analyzed our results and identified some characteristicsthat should be considered when developing a tool for enhancing reflection onlearning experiences in a collaborative environment.