Let'S Talk About Technology for Peace: A Systematic Assessment of Problem-Based Group Collaboration Around an Interactive Tabletop

Abstract

This work is concerned with the exploration of ideas in the realm of technology for peace, produced by small groups of students working around an interactive tabletop. A collaboration-enforcing tabletop application was used to mediate dialog and collaborative construction of a taxonomy of ideas based on the participants' consensus. The scenarios for discussion concerned the promotion of global peace and the social integration of immigrants in the society. The participants' dialog and interactions were video-recorded and analyzed. The study contributes a systematically developed coding scheme capturing the cognitive and physical elements of problem-based group collaboration around the interactive tabletop. Also, the consistent themes and ideas contributed across the participating groups highlight a number of areas where research could focus in terms of using technology for peace. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS • We focus on ideas in the realm of technology for peace, which is a domain of interest but rarely addressed in the field. • We use multi-touch tabletop technology as a means for promoting dialog and collaboration on a group artifact. • We conduct a systematic video analysis of interactions and present a coding scheme of problem-based group collaboration around an interactive tabletop. • The themes and ideas contributed across the participating groups highlight areas for research in the realm of technology for peace.

Handheld or Handsfree?

“…This work has examined collaborations employing a variety of new technologies, including large multi-touch displays [1,27,38] and tabletops [7,24,39]. Other work has examined remote collaborations using these technologies, studying how distributed tabletops may support gesture use [17], how virtually embodying users' arms affects coordination on distributed tabletops [10], and how design guidelines for non-distributed tabletop settings may extend to distributed tabletops [26].…”

Evaluating an automated mediator for joint narratives in a conflict situation

“…In contrast to previous work (e.g. Ioannou et al 2013;Zancanaro et al 2012), the participants are not co-located and there is no human intervention for translation. The main goal of this paper is to demonstrate the feasibility of automated mediation between remote participants in order to guide them towards an effective interaction.…”

“…For example, studies on shared interactive spaces have shown that collaborative storytelling can be used to facilitate conflict resolution and to support mutual understanding between people with different cultures (Ioannou and Chrystalla, 2016;Zancanaro et al, 2012). These studies investigated the impact of technologysupported interventions for mitigating intergroup conflicts (Stock et al, 2008;Zancanaro et al, 2012), discussing problematic and controversial topics (Ioannou et al 2013;Ioannou and Chrystalla, 2016), learning about conflict management (Brynen and Milante, 2013) and reflecting on controversial historical events (Pollack and Kolikant, 2012).…”

An Artifact Ecology in a Nutshell: A Distributed Cognition Perspective for Collaboration and Coordination

“…There is already substantial work on using tabletops to support collaborative learning [30] [31]. There is also ev idence that tabletops can help address the above-mentioned issues, moving attention away from a single input device such as a mouse or keyboard [32], promoting equal participation and shared control [33]. Therefore, the present work points attention to surface computing as a technology that can expand the artifact ecology to provide further support for collaboration and learning.…”