Context (Week 2)

Class was moved from Fulton to Pevensey 1 today, and the topic was "Context". There was a general discussion about the word, its definition and how it can be used in different perspectives. 

It was defined as the environment or condition or situation where a circumstance occurred but its definition is also subject to its usage, hence, Context has a lot of definitions. It was shown that this particular word is the basis for Ubiquitous computing. Its relevance can be seen in a lot of areas which was sub-grouped into various stages which includes;

• During requirements gathering.
• During design.
• During evaluation.    

The nature of knowledge (ontology) and the ways of generation of knowledge (epistemology) determines how researchers view about context. These views can be classified into 2:

• Positivist: Dourish, P. (2004) explains that "Positivists theories seek to reduce social phenomena to essences or simplified models that capture underlying patterns", which simply means that Positivists believe that there is an underlying truth which can be discovered only through the use of scientific methods which involves the observation and measurement of phenomena.
• Phenomenological: Dourish, P. (2004) also stated that "Abstract categories ...are things that need to be imposed on the world through our interactions with it and with each other, rather than things that exist within it". This means that knowledge cannot be gotten by measuring phenomena only, findings must be subjectively interpreted and that accepted knowledge is an agreement of interpretations.

There was a discussion about the above stated views and if we agreed with them. Various papers were cited and explained, there was also an explanation of how Context related to a lot of themes which included Technology Enhanced Learning, HCI in the wild and Ubiquitous computing.

For a small word, Context has a vast definition and meaning. Although I understood the meaning I could not really grasp its application and the explanation of the different views (extra reading required).

I had a great time in class today, learnt a lot but I definitely need to go study more about this word and its use.

This is the most relatable example I could find and it really made me understand the whole idea of context.