HCI researchers are increasingly interested in the evaluation of educational technologies in context, yet acknowledge that challenges remain regarding the logistical, material and methodological constraints of this approach to research [ 18 , 53 ]. Through the analysis of the authors’ contributed thematic research vignettes, the following article exposes the practical realities of evaluating educational technologies in school settings. This includes insights into the planning stages of evaluation, the relationship between the researcher and the school environment, and the impact of the school context on the data collection process. We conclude by providing an orientation for the design of HCI educational technology research undertaken in school contexts, providing guidance such as considering the role of modular research design, clarifying goals and expectations with school partners, and reporting researcher positionality.

In this paper, we examine how two chat apps fit into the communication ecosystem of six large distributed enterprises, in India and Kenya. From the perspective of management, these chat apps promised to foster greater communication and awareness between workers in the field, and between fieldworkers and the enterprises administration and management centres. Each organisation had multiple different types of chat groups, characterised by the types of content and interaction patterns they mediate, and the different organisational functions they fulfil. Examining the interplay between chat and existing local practices for coordination, collaboration and knowledge-sharing, we discuss how chat manifests in the distributed workplace and how it fits -- or otherwise -- alongside the rhythms of both local and remote work. We contribute to understandings of chat apps for workplace communication and provide insights for shaping their ongoing development.

Cross-cultural learning has gained increased interest and importance within school curricula in recent years. Schools are using technology to accumulate resources for cross-cultural learning, which has predominantly been pre-prepared videos, documentaries, photos and textual information available online. In this paper we describe the engagement with video technology on mobile smartphones by three migrant families who were tasked with developing cross-cultural resources over the course of six weeks. The resources developed were then used as a learning resource in a classroom and feedback was taken from the teacher. Our study has established that mobile phones particularly smartphones are an accessible, evocative and affordable avenue to aid in the development of cross-cultural resources alongside building stronger parental engagement in schools. The study contributes an expansion of knowledge in research areas that seek to use video technology on mobile phones to build cross-cultural resources for learning and strengthen home-school and school-home communication.