Educational Tools

I am a member of CLOE -- The Co-operative Learning Object Exchange.  My primary research interest in this area is to develop new educational tools for computer science education.  I am also a member of ACM SIGCSE -- the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education.

Current Research Projects

The project Advancing Evidence-based Nursing Practice with Hand-held Technology with Suzanne Coffey, Andre Kushniruk, AdelineFalk-Rafael, Stephen Chen, Lesley Beagrie, Janice Clark, Nancy Johnston, and Lisa Cicutto has been funded by The Change Foundation.  This project will focus on implementing a best practice guideline (BPG) for adult asthma care onto a personal digital assistant (PDA).  A learning object will be developed to help train the nurses to use the BPG and PDA.

The project Understanding Mathematical Relations through Learning Objects is developing learning objects for the Ontario grade 9 mathematics curriculum unit on relations.  The learning object will include a gesture-friendly interface component.

As a result of the UWO Symposium on Digital Mathematical Performance, I am developing a digitial mathematical performance for the topic of balanced equations with my symposium working group.  I hope to be able to do some field testing on this work while I am teaching in Ghana.

Peer-Reviewed Conference Proceedings

S. Chen, S. Khan, A. Moghaddam, I. Namukasa, and D. Stanley. (2007) “A Digital Mathematical Performance to Support the Physical Embodiment of Balanced Equations.”  To appear in the Proceedings of the 31st Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education.  July 8-13, 2007, Seoul, Korea. (full-length version in 2006 Fields Institute Symposium proceedings)

S. Chen, S. Coffey, E. Peisachovich, G. Pitt, D. Harnanansingh, W. Chen, A. Falk-Rafael, M. Reid, J. Smith, L. Beagrie, and A. Kushniruk. (2007) "Implementing Nursing Best Practice Guidelines into PDAs -- Preliminary Results and Lessons Learned." In Proceedings of Information Technology and Communications in Health (ITCH2007). February 15-18, 2007, Victoria, Canada.

S. Chen, G. Frempong, and W.C. Cudmore. (2006) "Gesture Friendly Interfaces for Classroom Teaching with Thinking Tools." In IFIP International Federation for Information Processing, Volume 210, Education for the 21st Century – Impact of ICT and Digital Resources, pgs 279-283. Springer. (presentation slides)

S. Chen and S. Morris. (2005) “Iconic Programming for Flowcharts, Java, Turing, etc.” In ITiCSE 2005, Proceedings of the 10th Annual SIGCSE Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education. pgs 104-107. ACM Press. (presentation slides)

Peer-Reviewed Conference Presentations

S. Coffey, A. Falk-Rafael, E. Peisachovich, S. Chen, L. Beagrie, D. Harnanansingh, J. Smith, H. Laranjo, J. Siemon, G. Pitt, and W. Chen. "Advancing Evidence-Based Best Nursing Practice Using Hand-Held Technology."  The Sigma Theta Tau 18th International Nursing Research Congress, Vienna, Austria. July 11, 2007.

Seminars

S.Chen. "Gesture Friendly Interfaces and other Tools to Help Teachers Teach with Gesture." IRLT seminar, Toronto, ON. October 2006.

Invited Presentations

S. Chen. "Iconic Programming – Teaching Programming without the Syntax." The Association for Computer Studies Educators, 8th Conference, Mississagua, ON. November 2006.

Conference Presentations

S. Chen. "Blending Courses with Course Archives and 'Webtexts'." TEL@York, Toronto, ON. April 2006.

S. Chen. "Iconic Programmer: A Visualization Tool for Teaching Concepts without Context." Leading Learning 2005, Toronto, ON. February 2005.

Unreviewed Papers

S. Chen, S. Khan, A. Moghaddam, I. Namukasa, and D. Stanley. (2007) “A Digital Mathematical Performance to Support the Physical Embodiment of Balanced Equations.”  To appear in the Proceedings of Digital Mathematical Performance, a Fields Institute Symposium, University of Western Ontario. (full-length version of PME paper above)

S. Chen (2006) "Gesture-Friendly User Interfaces for Classroom use of Thinking Tools." In G. Gadanidis (ed), Proceedings of Designing Mathematical Thinking Tools, a Fields Institute Symposium, University of Western Ontario, pgs 83-84.

BPG for Developing and Sustaining Nursing Leadership

Learning Objects in the CLOE database

Learning Objects in Production

"Webtexts" (organized sets of on-line resources)

Gesture Friendly Interfaces

Learning Objects for Grade 9 Mathematics (with Gesture Friendly Interfaces)

Digital Mathematical Performances
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