=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-1602/paper3
|storemode=property
|title=IoT for Smart City Learning: Towards Requirements for an Authoring Tool
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1602/paper3.pdf
|volume=Vol-1602
|authors=Francesco Gianni,Simone Mora,Monica Divitini
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/avi/GianniMD16
}}
==IoT for Smart City Learning: Towards Requirements for an Authoring Tool==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1602/paper3.pdf
12
IoT for Smart City Learning: Towards
Requirements for an Authoring Tool
Francesco Gianni Simone Mora Abstract
Norwegian Univesity of Science Norwegian Univesity of Science Pervasive information visualization and interaction are fun-
and Technology and Technology damental tools to support learning in smart cities (SCL),
Department of Computer and Department of Computer and
for example to promote sustainable behaviours and social
Information Science Information Science
interaction.
Trondheim, Norway Trondheim, Norway
francesco.gianni@idi.ntnu.no simone.mora@idi.ntnu.no
Building on a review of existing work, we identify the main
limitations of traditional approaches based on large displays
and smart-phones apps, first from a technological point of
Monica Divitini view then connecting to implications for design, user inter-
Norwegian Univesity of Science action and experience.
and Technology
Department of Computer and In the paper we propose a set of authoring primitives at
Information Science different semantic levels, ranging from more generic inter-
Trondheim, Norway net of things (IoT) primitives to more domain specific ap-
monica.divitini@idi.ntnu.no proaches connected to learning in SCL applications.
We focus more in detail on new design opportunities, de-
veloping possible scenarios of interest that involve SCL.
The use of a toolkit for rapid prototyping is proposed as a
valuable support instrument for application design and de-
velopment.
Copyright is held by the author/owner(s). Author Keywords
AVI, June 07–10, 2016, Bari, Italy
smart objects; internet of things; authoring; smart city learn-
ing.
13
ACM Classification Keywords adopting these types of interfaces are (i) to enable the cre-
H.5.2 [Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI)]: ation of rich and unobtrusive user experiences, (ii) to extend
User Interfaces; H.5.3 [Information interfaces and presenta- the type of data that can be captured to be used as learning
tion (e.g., HCI)]: Group and Organization Interfaces content, including sensor data from the environment and
from citizens’ whereabouts. Therefore sensor-based TUIs
Introduction could complement traditional approaches based on large
Studies demonstrate that social connections in cities stim- screens and smartphones, especially when the learning
ulates creativity and improves work quality [6]. This is only environment can be as wide and heterogeneous as a city.
one of the reasons why the percentage of people living in Todays’ increasingly adoption of sensors and IoT technolo-
urban environments is growing. gies are acting as enabling factors for the development of
such interfaces; yet whether a number of studies have re-
Smart cities present, by definition, a strong technological ported design guidelines for urban screens, there’s a lack of
component. In Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL), the guidelines to help the design of different types of interfaces.
role of technology is to direct, foster thinking and facilitate
the acquisition of higher order skills [9]. Current research As identified during a systematic mapping of the literature
applied to learning in the cities seem to focus on two main on smart city learning [7], novel interaction modalities e.g.
technological means for learning contents: situated large interactive objects and IoT, are not fully exploited. Even
displays and mobile devices, intended as tablets and smart- when used, the affordances employed are only a limited
phones [12]. subset of the available ones. Unexplored opportunities
emerged also when considering the learning aspect: rather
Traditional technology is a limiting factor: mobile devices than communities of citizens in the urban space, the re-
and large screens support a very strict and confined set search scenario usually involves schools or governance.
of interaction strategies. It’s often not possible to tailor
the user experience to properly fit the specific scenario The need for more SCL research involving applications built
because technology is too limiting. Our goal is to design around IoT and smart objects suggest the need to define a
aiming at the best possible strategy for the users, build- design space and a set of primitives, lying at different se-
ing the technology around this process and avoiding the mantic levels, useful to structure and guide the authoring
constraints typically introduced by more general-purpose process.
hardware/software combinations.
Tangible user interfaces as a tool
We claim there is a space of opportunity for SCL applica- Characteristics of Tangible Interfaces and Smart Objects
tions in adopting novel ubiquitous computing approaches Tangible user interfaces denote systems that rely on “tangi-
like tangible user interfaces (TUIs) and augmented objects ble manipulation, physical representation of data and em-
(AOs). These technologies have already been found effec- beddedness in the real space”, allowing for an embodied
tive in supporting learning [15], but their applications were interaction with digital information. Embodied interaction,
mainly oriented to support learning as it happen in conven- as defined by Dourish [5], is a collection of trends emerged
tional schools and classrooms. The principal advantages in
14
in HCI, relying on the common ground to provide a more tive aspects that are often quite different. Big diversities are
natural user interaction with digital information. observed on the reasons why different cities are defined as
smart.
Embodied interaction takes the interaction “off the screen”
to the real world by distributing inputs and outputs in space This situation is the consequence of the lack of a clear and
rather than in time, desequentialising interaction and re- recognized definition of smart city.
ducing the gap between where the information is created
and where it is accessed. In this picture TUIs seamlessly Komninos [10], in his attempt to delineate the intelligent
integrate both representation and control of computation city, (perhaps the concept most closely related to the smart
into physical artifacts: “By treating the body of the device city), sees intelligent (smart) cities as “territories with high
as part of the user interface -an embodied user interface- capacity for learning and innovation, which is built–in the
we can go beyond the manipulation of a GUI and allow the creativity of their population, their institutions of knowledge
user to really directly manipulate an integrated physical- creation, and their digital infrastructure for communication
virtual device”. When these artifacts also resemble and and knowledge management”.
retain the functionalities of traditional objects, they can be
Smart cities are also a powerful ecosystem for learning.
called smart or augmented objects.
Smart city learning aim to support the improvement of all
TUIs and smart objects (SOs) allow interaction designers to key factors contributing to the regional competitiveness:
be free to experiment with new types of metaphors, taking mobility, environment, people, quality of life and gover-
advantage of the users’ physical skills and providing inter- nance. The approach is aimed at optimizing resource con-
faces which exploit people’s knowledge with the everyday sumption and saving time improving flows of people, goods
non-digital world. and data1 .
End user development can also play an important role in Education in this context is pursued as a bottom-up pro-
this scenario [11]. The focus is shifted on empowering cess, where person and places are central. Smartness from
users that are not familiar with any programming language, a learning perspective exists both in the ambient data col-
allowing them to develop and modify the original behav- lected and among the communities that exists within a city.
ior of programmable systems. End user development has
The separation between student and teacher will fade out.
gained interest even in connection with ubiquitous comput-
Their role will be content or situation dependent: everybody
ing. Several works have explored the possibilities offered
will be a learner and the relation between persons will get a
by end-users building applications for IoT and ubiquitous
bigger role.
computing [2] [3].
Characteristics of Smart City Learning Applications
Limitations of current technology Technologies like mobile devices, tags, web based appli-
Smart City Learning cations, geographical information and e-learning systems
The concept of smart-city has also been used in many dif-
1
ferent context and is associated with distinctive and innova- http://www.mifav.uniroma2.it/inevent/events/sclo/
15
have already been used to develop smart city learning ap- Multi-axial rotation detects with sufficient precision object
plications on the field [14] [4]. rotation and tilt;
Smart city learning applications consist in the implementa- Shake and displacement intended as the ability to de-
tion of urban informatics techniques and approaches to pro- tect when the object is shaken vigorously or is being
mote innovative engagement strategies [1]. Studies found physically moved.
that urban informatics provide an innovative opportunity to
enrich students’ place of learning within the city [1]. FEEDBACK AND OUTPUT
Led light can be used as a low fidelity output, more com-
No doubt that among the consequences of such attention
plex communication strategies can be implemented,
there is an acceleration in supporting the integration and
like blinking, color fading and led matrix;
embedding of ICT within physical environments to realize
what has been defined the everyware [8]. Haptic defined as vibration pattern that differ in intensity
and duration;
Augmented Objects and TUIs for SCL applications
We identified a list of primitives at different semantic levels Sound intended as simple beeping or composition of multi-
useful to describe, design and author applications for SCL tone sounds.
supported by SOs and TUIs:
OBJECT AUGMENTATION
Untethered operation augmented object should work in-
dependently and autonomously, without being hooked
to any external device that provides connectivity or
power support;
Easily embeddable technology should be easy to inte-
grate into objects, without altering the original func-
tion and nature of the object;
Energy autonomous the objects should be as much au-
Figure 1: Semantic layers of the primitives. tonomous as possible, effective energy usage, bat-
tery efficiency and energy harvesting can help at this
regard.
Generic level
PHYSICAL MANIPULATION
“Generic/Domain Specific” overlapping level
Touch as the ability to detect interactions like a simple
touch, swipes, multiple taps et simila; DATA
Sensor data collection intended as the opportunity to em-
ploy data gathered in real time from the surrounding
16
ambient. Domain specific data can include for exam- Domain Specific level
ple air pollution, geolocation, temperature;
LEARNING
Data visualization as the ability to support visualization of Reflection occurs when reflecting on previous experience
simple information through low fidelity output. Adapt- and behaviours;
ing to the domain implies that only a specific subset
Behaviour change the explicit goal is to modify or improve
of data visualization strategies are suitable. It is also
a specific behaviour;
important to trigger the learning process and help the
users reflect on their experience; Data enabled knowledge is extracted directly from col-
lected data;
Data processing involves elaboration of data coming from
sensors and/or from third party services. Social occurs when it’s the result of a community process;
Game based process gamification and situated games
INTERACTION STRATEGIES where smart objects extend and improve the game-
Object sharing intended more as a dimension, SOs allow play and the learning experience.
to freely move from the private and personal sphere
to sharable artifacts and community objects, continu-
Challenges
ously exploring the space in between;
Although the need for a set of authoring primitives is driven
Background/foreground interaction should be possible by the possibility to follow a more lightweight design ap-
when the object is in the center of attention, but also proach and to better adapt to the context, defining an ap-
when in background, providing context information propriate semantic level can be intricate since it is closely
possibly through glances and nudging; related to the skills of the target group (end-users, devel-
opers, designers, etc). A series of challenges are also con-
Distributed interaction with several augmented objects nected to the authoring process:
orchestrated as a single user interface;
Multimodal object interaction based on more than one • Several semantic levels require several competen-
strategy, e.g. touch and speech recognition on the cies, which implies that collaboration among experts
same object; is fundamental to address complexity along multiple
dimensions;
Sensor based it’s an enabler for physical manipulation,
since smart objects do not provide a dedicated in- • Proposed primitives can be combined in multiple
teraction interface (like a keyboard or buttons), the ways, picking the best alternatives for each appli-
interaction happens with the object itself. cation can still be challenging;
• Data are a valuable source of knowledge to improve
the design process, analytics are important to keep
17
track of the process and spot opportunities for im- composition rules, (ii) hardware modules with sensors and
provements; actuators to generate and consume primitives, (iii) a soft-
ware framework to allow manipulation and use of primitives
• The learning process can follow several approaches.
within a specific application logic. TILES toolbox aim at sup-
Based on the specific domain, can be challenging to
porting the iterative process of building prototypes of in-
find the most effective;
teractive objects, using abstract primitives developed as a
• Promoting creativity is essential when dealing with bridge to gracefully support the transition between design
different target groups, it is important to balance and and implementation steps [13]. Prototypes might then be
define the primitives in a way that are useful to guide released for user testing.
the design without introducing heavy constraints that
can hinder creativity and original solutions. TILES is a promising project that fits very well with the
generic authoring primitives defined above. It is designed
taking into account many of the challenges usually found in
Examples of applications prototyping toolkits. TILES’ flexible software framework and
Example of SCL applications resulting from this approach event-driven messaging system allow to develop abstrac-
can be situated augmented games where players interact tions at different semantic levels for the coding process.
with smart pones that are also location aware. Pones can This helps to match more closely the skills of end users,
be displaced in the environment, shared between players, developer, designers and possibly other categories.
can guide the gameplay, support different interaction modal-
ities and provide simple triggers for reflection, supporting Conclusion
the learning experience. In this article we proposed a new way to empower technol-
ogy in SCL scenarios. Starting from the literature, the lim-
Another example can involve the use of augmented objects
itations of current technological patterns were highlighted,
to facilitate cooperation between communities in the city.
then AOs and TUIs were introduced as a viable alternative
The process of urban planning in Norway require the mu-
to more traditional approaches. TILES is then proposed as
nicipalities to gather feedback from communities of citizens.
a valuable toolkit for rapid prototyping with SOs.
Difficulties has been encountered in providing value in the
process, since traditional methods do not fit well when deal- Our claim is that the proposed primitives can be combined
ing with children for example. Using smart objects that can and used to author and design SCL applications that em-
be physically manipulated and provide an engaging expe- power SOs, IoT and TUIs. Strengths and challenges of the
rience can motivate and attract participants to collaborate authoring process were also presented.
and at the same time stimulate their creativity.
Using this approach we believe it will be possible to suc-
TILES toolkit for AOs cessfully address several of the challenges that charac-
Tiles2 is a rapid prototyping toolkit for AOs, it is composed terize research and interaction in SCL scenarios. More
by: (i) a set of abstracted physical interaction primitives and research and feedback are needed to better ground the
2
http://tilestoolkit.io claims proposed.
18
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