1) Sten Govaerts is a researcher at EPFL interested in learning, music, social media, and information visualization. 2) He works on projects like Go-Lab and Graasp which bring scientific inquiry into the classroom through social media. 3) One project, SpeakUp, allows for location-based temporary anonymous interaction to enrich face-to-face and digital discussions, but balancing attention, participation, and information overload is challenging.

1. Sten Govaerts
EPFL, Switzerland



✈️

)

️






2. Research interests
Learning
Music
Social media
Information visualisation

3. Go-Lab
Encouraging
students to study
STEM!
http://golabz.eu

4. Bringing scientific
enquiry into the
classroom
through social
media!
Teacher edit mode
Student view mode
http://graasp.eu

5. SpeakUp
Q
A
A
❶
A
❷
❺
❷ ❹
Q
❶ ❸
Without SpeakUp
With SpeakUp
Scenario
Sten Govaerts, Adrian Holzer
and Denis Gillet, "Enriching
face-to-face and digital
interaction with SpeakUp:
challenges & lessons
learned"

6. SpeakUp
+22
(22 votes)
@prof:
@prof:

7. location-based
temporary
anonymous

8. evaluation:
11 courses + 1 conference
> 2000 participants
80
50
40
30
20
10
0
SpeakUp content spam organisation speakup
face-to-face content
G1: group without SpeakUp
G2: group with SpeakUp
number of messages
G1 G2 G1 G2 G1 G2 G1 G2 G1 G2 G1 G2
lecture 1
lecture 2 lecture 3 lecture 4 lecture 5 lecture 6
PM2013
lecture 1
60
lecture 2 lecture 3 lecture 4 lecture 5
70
lecture
IS2013 EM2013
90

9. 20
10
0
Number of messages
2 3 4 5 6
Lecture #
lecture related
fun
miscellaneous
social
news
irrelevant messages:
40 messages
30
of 20
Number 10
0
Messages relevant to the lecturer
Message not relevant to the lecturer
FC BC
FC = Frontchannel
BC = Backchannel
FC BC FC BC FC BC FC BC
Lecture 2 Lecture 3 Lecture 4 Lecture 5 Lecture 6
it’s not all
spam!

10. temporary social media:
users: YES!
non-users: not needed…

11. research question: how digital and f2f
interactions be interweaved?
experiments with different protocols
digital ▲, then
co-location need ▼
consolidate different
digital platforms

12. research question: how can participation
be improved?
SpeakUp increases participation.
how can participation become
more representative & inclusive?
does information
overload
affect
participation?

13. research question: how to balance
attention, distraction & awareness?
experiments with public display
push notifications to foster digital
interaction awareness
but, when, what and how?
 using wearable tech?

14. Try it in your
lecture!
http://www.seance.ch