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Cymraeg

Research Interests: Dr Steve Harris / Diddordebau Ymchwil Dr Steve Harris

Science Shops & Community-Based Research (CBR)
AT-IT: Activity-theoretical Information Technology (Design & Development)
Education
Science Shops & Community-Based Research (CBR)

Science Shops & Community-Based Research (CBR)
I am am currently managing the Science Shops Wales project, a HEFCW-funded project which involves setting up and running a national network of community-based research centres or "Science Shops" in Welsh Universities, where tutors, researchers and students help local community groups and NGOs investigate and solve knowledge-based problems using hands-on scientific methods.

AT-IT: Activity-theoretical Information Technology (Design & Development)
The title of my recently submitted Doctoral thesis is "Supporting Learning-in-Use: Some Applications of Activity Theory to the Analysis and Design of ICT-Enabled Collaborative Work and Learning". Click here for the abstract and a link to download the complete thesis. The thesis reports work in the areas of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Participatory Design (PD) and Computer Supported Collaborative Work and Learning(CSCW/L), based on the observation and analysis of ICT use by nonprofessionals in real-world settings. This work was carried out within the University of Glamorgan School of Computing Hypermedia Research Unit, under the supervision of Dr. D. S. Tudhope.

Much of the data underpinning the research was gathered locally (in south Wales), through work with groups of Adult Basic Skills literacy and numeracy learners at the nearby Pontypridd School of Basic Skills Open Learning Centre. In one example, the Computer Creative project of 2000-1, we explored the use of new media technologies as tools for creativity and communication, where the course curriculum and activities were developed in a student-led learner-centered, participatory design process. Other projects at the Centre have been based around the use of Internet technologies (e.g. Web authoring, email), virtual reality, and computer programming. My involvement with these projects has given me a passionate interest in adult basic education, and has lead directly to my involvement with the NRDC and Science Shops Wales (see below). The empirical research setting, in the postindustrial South Wales Valleys, has also led to my becoming interested in the issues raised by the impact of ICT on communities and individuals who are already excluded or marginalized from full socioeconomic participation - issues that can be loosely grouped under the heading of 'the digital divide'.

Theoretically, this research developed out of an early interest in (loosely Piagetian) constructivist approaches to using technology in education, inspired by the work of Prof. Seymour Papert & his associates - ideas that are embodied in the well-known computer programming language LOGO. However, growing awareness of the multilevel, collective, historically formed and developing nature of the human-computer interaction led me to seek more developed, consistent and holistic frameworks for my analyses. Through contact with the work of Prof. Susanne Bødker & her associates in the Human-Computer Interaction Group at Aarhus University, Denmark, I adopted activity theory as the principal framework for my investigations. I have subsequently worked to expand the interpretations of general activity theory used by the Scandinavian School of HCI to include insights from the Systems-Structural Theory of Activity, an activity-theoretical approach specifically tailored to the study of human work and learning.

Education
I contributed as a practitioner/researcher to a DFES funded investigation into the effective uses of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in adult literacy and numeracy. This project was carried out by the National Research & Development Centre for Adult Literacy & Numeracy (NRDC) and the University of London Institute of Education. The project directors were Dr. H. Mellar & Dr. M. Kambouri.

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