IPTV and cultural probes: A qualitative explorative study for the development of an interface for learning

The distance learning system has an important role to play in development and expansion of education. Use of digital technology in education makes communication, interaction, storage, and distribution of educational content more efficient (AZAMBUJA, 2013). Today, technology and media are very diverse. Internet Protocol Television, IPTV, is a new vehicle for communication and interactive information that makes new distance learning ideas possible. IPTV has become fundamental because they are highly interactive, they deliver synchronous and asynchronous content at a high quality, and offer an expanding range of options to users. Cultural probe can lead to very promissing results as a qualitative IPTV research tool. It is a proposal of a conceptual model of a learning interface for IPTV. The objective of this article is to describe the development and application process and qualitative research results as a way to collect data using cultural probes to develop a proposal for an IPTV education interface to deliver synchrous and asynchronous content to teach engineering, specifically engineering distance learning via IPTV. Objective and tasks were designed in this study for engineering and communication students and electrical and telecommunication engineering teachers to record observations. The results obtained using this technique can help to develop a proposal for an educational interface that will enable IPTV to be used in distance education to teach engineering. The development and application process of the cultural probes in this article had three steps adapted from the method proposed by Mattelmäki [1]: 1) tuning; 2) probe design; 3) interpretation and results. Finally, the main points of the experience were cast and discussed considering the results obtained and the protocol used to collect the data. The methodology encompasses: review of the literature to define the directives to be used in IPTV in distance education based on studies and considerations in the areas of engineering education, participative design, media, and learning; qualitative data were collected using cultural probes; a data analysis report; and a proposal for a conceptual model of an IPTV interface for use in distance education. The results indicate new challenges for qualitative research in the area.