Designing mobile digital library services for pre-engineering and technology literacy

• Autores: Jonathan Hay, Jaspal Sandhu, Catherine Newman, Jui-Shan Hsu, Charlotte Daniels, Esha Datta, Alice Agogino
• Localización: The International journal of engineering education, ISSN-e 0949-149X, Vol. 23, no. Extra 3, 2007, págs. 441-453
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The potential of new developments in mobile technology, with capabilities for anytime, anywhere wireless access, to affect pre-engineering education and technical literacy at the K-12 level remains poorly understood. Mobile access to digital libraries providesunique opportunities for leveraging valuable experiences outside of the classroom. This paper presents a user needs analysis of teachers,students and parents with regard to understanding the potential of such mobile digital library services to enhance science andtechnology learning in informal environments for students in U.S. grades 4±5 and middle school. To study this area we discuss amethodology at the intersection of design and research that borrows from qualitative research methods and traditional user-centereddesign, together with frameworks for translating qualitative data into concrete user needs. We present a summary of twelve need``themes'' that emerged from the analysis together with recommendations for how these themes inform the development of a mobiledigital library infrastructure and its digital learning resources. The recommendations are illustrated on an informal learning scenariointended for a pre-engineering exercise using resources from the NEEDS engineering education digital library at www.needs.org.