A dissertação investiga a consolidação do novo campo autônomo da Educomunicação, com ênfase na área da mediação tecnológica na educação, tendo como objeto de pesquisa produções radiofônicas vinculadas ao projeto educom.rádio, implementado pelo NCEUSP (Núcleo de Comunicação e Educação) junto a 455 escolas da rede municipal de ensino de São Paulo entre 2001 e 2004. Propõe-se a investigar quantitativamente centenas de programas de rádio realizados por professores e estudantes que participaram do projeto e a analisar qualitativamente a continuidade das práticas educomunicativas de produção radiofônica nas escolas, nos dois anos subseqüentes ao projeto educom.rádio, em 2005 e 2006. A pesquisa pretende elucidar em que condições e com que resultados ações educomunicativas podem melhorar os processos comunicativos nas escolas e ainda estimular o protagonismo infanto-juvenil, potencializando a capacidade expressiva de crianças e jovens, tornando-os cidadãos mais críticos e criativos. / This thesis investigates the consolidation of a new academic field called educommunication. The emphasis is to analize radio productions under the technology mediation perspective in education, at a specif project identified as educom.radio, developed by the Nucleus of Communication and Education of the University of São Pualo, in 455 São Paulo\'s public schools, since 2001 until 2004. We intend to make a quantitativity investigation of more than 600 radio programms produced by teachers and students. We also inted to go ahead in two years after the end of educom.radio, presenting a qualitivity analysis of the educommnunication activities with radio productions at São Paulo public schools, in 2005 and 2006. The research elucidates the conditions and the results of educommunication actions to improve the communication process at schools and to estimulate children and teens participation in educational communities real life, in order to increase their expression habilities and to help them to become more critc and creative citzens.

abstract: Social situational awareness, or the attentiveness to one's social surroundings, including the people, their interactions and their behaviors is a complex sensory-cognitive-motor task that requires one to be engaged thoroughly in understanding their social interactions. These interactions are formed out of the elements of human interpersonal communication including both verbal and non-verbal cues. While the verbal cues are instructive and delivered through speech, the non-verbal cues are mostly interpretive and requires the full attention of the participants to understand, comprehend and respond to them appropriately. Unfortunately certain situations are not conducive for a person to have complete access to their social surroundings, especially the non-verbal cues. For example, a person is who is blind or visually impaired may find that the non-verbal cues like smiling, head nod, eye contact, body gestures and facial expressions of their interaction partners are not accessible due to their sensory deprivation. The same could be said of people who are remotely engaged in a conversation and physically separated to have a visual access to one's body and facial mannerisms. This dissertation describes novel multimedia technologies to aid situations where it is necessary to mediate social situational information between interacting participants. As an example of the proposed system, an evidence-based model for understanding the accessibility problem faced by people who are blind or visually impaired is described in detail. From the derived model, a sleuth of sensing and delivery technologies that use state-of-the-art computer vision algorithms in combination with novel haptic interfaces are developed towards a) A Dyadic Interaction Assistant, capable of helping individuals who are blind to access important head and face based non-verbal communicative cues during one-on-one dyadic interactions, and b) A Group Interaction Assistant, capable of provide situational awareness about the interaction partners and their dynamics to a user who is blind, while also providing important social feedback about their own body mannerisms. The goal is to increase the effective social situational information that one has access to, with the conjuncture that a good awareness of one's social surroundings gives them the ability to understand and empathize with their interaction partners better. Extending the work from an important social interaction assistive technology, the need for enriched social situational awareness is everyday professional situations are also discussed, including, a) enriched remote interactions between physically separated interaction partners, and b) enriched communication between medical professionals during critical care procedures, towards enhanced patient safety. In the concluding remarks, this dissertation engages the readers into a science and technology policy discussion on the potential effect of a new technology like the social interaction assistant on the society. Discussing along the policy lines, social disability is highlighted as an important area that requires special attention from researchers and policy makers. Given that the proposed technology relies on wearable inconspicuous cameras, the discussion of privacy policies is extended to encompass newly evolving interpersonal interaction recorders, like the one presented in this dissertation. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Electrical Engineering 2011

A dissertação investiga a consolidação do novo campo autônomo da Educomunicação, com ênfase na área da mediação tecnológica na educação, tendo como objeto de pesquisa produções radiofônicas vinculadas ao projeto educom.rádio, implementado pelo NCEUSP (Núcleo de Comunicação e Educação) junto a 455 escolas da rede municipal de ensino de São Paulo entre 2001 e 2004. Propõe-se a investigar quantitativamente centenas de programas de rádio realizados por professores e estudantes que participaram do projeto e a analisar qualitativamente a continuidade das práticas educomunicativas de produção radiofônica nas escolas, nos dois anos subseqüentes ao projeto educom.rádio, em 2005 e 2006. A pesquisa pretende elucidar em que condições e com que resultados ações educomunicativas podem melhorar os processos comunicativos nas escolas e ainda estimular o protagonismo infanto-juvenil, potencializando a capacidade expressiva de crianças e jovens, tornando-os cidadãos mais críticos e criativos. / This thesis investigates the consolidation of a new academic field called educommunication. The emphasis is to analize radio productions under the technology mediation perspective in education, at a specif project identified as educom.radio, developed by the Nucleus of Communication and Education of the University of São Pualo, in 455 São Paulo\'s public schools, since 2001 until 2004. We intend to make a quantitativity investigation of more than 600 radio programms produced by teachers and students. We also inted to go ahead in two years after the end of educom.radio, presenting a qualitivity analysis of the educommnunication activities with radio productions at São Paulo public schools, in 2005 and 2006. The research elucidates the conditions and the results of educommunication actions to improve the communication process at schools and to estimulate children and teens participation in educational communities real life, in order to increase their expression habilities and to help them to become more critc and creative citzens.

This thesis examines the RPG game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) and its players in the Czech Republic. Although, D&D is primarily a game that uses physical components such as paper character sheets or dice, technology has also found its way to it, which is no surprise because current world is full of new technologies. The aim of this work is to examine the motivation of players to play, what role mediation plays, what technologies are used in playing and what are the main differences players perceive in the case of face-to-face session and in the case of online session. Many different technologies are used in both cases. Research questions dealing with these topics are answered through semi-structured interviews with a total of eight players and two participant observations of a player group's session. The most important reasons to play are the social and creative aspects of the game - players play with others, with whom they often form long-term friendships, and enjoy creating and using their imagination to create unique characters, narratives and worlds. D&D is also a source of inspiration for them. The main differences in offline and online game are especially in sociality and opportunities for communication, which is related to the atmosphere and experience, which in the case of face-to-face game...