• Ubiquitous Learning Spaces: What learning experiences can happen in a world of seamless mobile and wireless connectivity?
  
• Design of technology enhanced learning environments: How can we scaffold and document this process? See our set of learning patterns for more details.
• Mobile Learning: How can context-aware mobile technologies be designed to facilitate learning, and in so doing, to support the cycle between situated action and subsequent objective reflection? See the CoMo (coming soon) and MoPiX projects. 
• Mathematics Education: Development and empirically study of collaborative mobile learning applications for representing mathematical ideas. See the MiGen project.
• ICT4D: How can appropriate technology be designed for the developing world?
  
• Wearable Computing: Can we build wearable devices to help us manage information and design new ways of relating to it?

Current Funded Projects

• ReMATH: Representing Mathematics with Digital Media. A 3-year (2005-2008) Specific Targeted Research Project (STREP) funded by the EU under the FP6-2004-IST-4 research programme. I am co-leading the LKL part of the project with Dr Candia Morgan. The team also includes Ken Kahn, Dusanka Nikolic and Jehad Alshwaikh. 

  ReMath will address the problem of wide-ranging dissatisfaction with the state of mathematics education in Europe and the weak impact of R&D work on using ICT for its improvement. A generative stance to theory development will be adopted, aiming to impact on state-of-the-art knowledge by producing a new paradigm for research in the field involving new avenues for added value education based on digital media. The project will build an integrated theoretical framework for learning through representing mathematical meanings based on evidence from experience involving a cyclical process of a) developing six state-of-the-art dynamic digital artefacts for representing mathematics, b) developing scenarios for the use of these artefacts for educational added value and c) carrying out empirical research involving cross-experimentation in realistic educational contexts. The project will contribute to the theory of human cognition by studying mathematical learning through a representations-centred approach. The project will also concretely impact on educational system through the development of an integrated digital learning space for math education which will be available in different European languages.

  In the first phase of work, the LKL will concentrate on the theoretical framework and on the design and iterative development of a new distributed mobile-based learning environment for the collaborative construction of mathematical represetations. NOTE: The latest version of MoPiX is available here.

• CoMo: supporting collaborative group work using mobile phones. A 1-year project funded by the Centre for Distance Education, investigating how collaborative learning activites can be enhanced through the use of mobile phones, and the contexts in which this occurs. The empirical work will be undertaken at the Royal Veterinary College. My role is PI. 

• MiGen: Intelligent support of mathematical generalisation. A £1.5m, 3.5-year (2007-2010) project funded by the ESRC/EPSRC under the TLRPprogramme. I am co-investigator, responsible for tool design and interfacing with the underlying AI compenents. The team are Richard Noss (PI), Alex  Poulovassilis, Celia Hoyles, George Magoulas and Ken Kahn. More details can be found here.

• 2006: Learning patterns for the design and deployment of mathematical games. A 1-year project funded by the European Kaleidoscope Network of Excellence. I led the LKL part of the work and directed the Design Patterns strand. The other LKL team member was Yishay Mor.

  Programmable game-based mathematical learning activities are designed to challenge traditional notions of representational infrastructure. In particular, they focus on new ways for learners to think and talk about mathematical and scientific ideas. However, to extend and maximise their potential, we need to: (i) formally characterise the development practices and tool usage, and (ii) make particular development techniques explicit, enabling reuse of 'best practice'. There is a pressing need for this research as currently there is little work on identifying development processes and reusable techniques that have proved successful. We will address these issues by developing a set of reusable design patterns for mathematical games. These will provide designers with a means of formalising their development processes, resulting in the reuse of particularly successful techniques. All the deliverables are available from here. See also: LiveMind. 

• 2005: Things to do with ICT in the Mathematics Classroom, with L. Healy, R. Noss and C. Hoyles, for the QCA (at the London Knowledge Lab).
• 2004/5: iBand: a wearable device for handshake-augmented information exchange. Developed in collaboration with the Human Connectedness Group at Media Lab Europe.
• 2003: Biosphera: A Prototype Design for Learning about Multivariate Systems, with M. Cherubini and C. Strohecker (at MIT Media Lab Europe).
• 2002: Omnidirectional Vision for Mobile Robot Navigation, with J. Gaspar and J. Santos-Victor (at VisLab, ISR, Portugal).

Programme Committees

• IADIS Mobile Learning 2007, Programme Committee
• CAL 2007, Programme Committee
• ACM Symposium on Applied Computing 2006, Track on Ubiquitous Computing Applications, Programme Committee.
• IADIS Applied Computing 2006, Programme Committee.
• ACM Symposium on Applied Computing 2005, Track on Ubiquitous Computing Applications, Programme Committee.
• ACM Multimedia 2004, Technical Programme Committee.

Symposia and Workshops
I (co-)organised the following worshops/symposia:

• As part of the Learning patterns project, the following 5 workshops were organised. A video course is also available.
• Designing for handheld learning: practical experience using different modalities at Handheld Learning 2005. The speakers were: Carey Jewitt, Sara Price, Kevin Walker and Nancy Proctor.
• The ubiquitous learning space at CAL'05. The speakers were: Yanna Vogiazou, Kevin Walker and Mike Sharples. [PDF]