Towards a framework for investigating tangible environments for learning

External representations have been shown to play a key role in mediating cognition. Tangible environments offer the opportunity for novel representational formats and combinations, potentially increasing representational power for supporting learning. However, we currently know little about the specific learning benefits of tangible environments, and have no established framework within which to analyse the ways that external representations work in tangible environments to support learning. Taking external representation as the central focus, this paper proposes a framework for investigating the effect of tangible technologies on interaction and cognition. Key artefact-action-representation relationships are identified, and classified to form a structure for investigating the differential cognitive effects of these features. An example scenario from our current research is presented to illustrate how the framework can be used as a method for investigating the effectiveness of differential designs for supporting science learning

Tangible user interfaces : past, present and future directions

In the last two decades, Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) have emerged as a new interface type that interlinks the digital and physical worlds. Drawing upon users' knowledge and skills of interaction with the real non-digital world, TUIs show a potential to enhance the way in which people interact with and leverage digital information. However, TUI research is still in its infancy and extensive research is required in or- der to fully understand the implications of tangible user interfaces, to develop technologies that further bridge the digital and the physical, and to guide TUI design with empirical knowledge. This paper examines the existing body of work on Tangible User In- terfaces. We start by sketching the history of tangible user interfaces, examining the intellectual origins of this field. We then present TUIs in a broader context, survey application domains, and review frame- works and taxonomies. We also discuss conceptual foundations of TUIs including perspectives from cognitive sciences, phycology, and philoso- phy. Methods and technologies for designing, building, and evaluating TUIs are also addressed. Finally, we discuss the strengths and limita- tions of TUIs and chart directions for future research

Setting the stage – embodied and spatial dimensions in emerging programming practices.

In the design of interactive systems, developers sometimes need to engage in various ways of physical performance in order to communicate ideas and to test out properties of the system to be realised. External resources such as sketches, as well as bodily action, often play important parts in such processes, and several methods and tools that explicitly address such aspects of interaction design have recently been developed. This combined with the growing range of pervasive, ubiquitous, and tangible technologies add up to a complex web of physicality within the practice of designing interactive systems. We illustrate this dimension of systems development through three cases which in different ways address the design of systems where embodied performance is important. The first case shows how building a physical sport simulator emphasises a shift in activity between programming and debugging. The second case shows a build-once run-once scenario, where the fine-tuning and control of the run-time activity gets turned into an act of in situ performance by the programmers. The third example illustrates the explorative and experiential nature of programming and debugging systems for specialised and autonomous interaction devices. This multitude in approaches in existing programming settings reveals an expanded perspective of what practices of interaction design consist of, emphasising the interlinking between design, programming, and performance with the system that is being developed

The Alignment of Client and Consultant Views

Gable [1996a] validated a multidimensional measurement model of client success when engaging external consultants to assist with selection of computer based information systems. Following on from that study and employing the same data, this paper seeks to compare client and consultant views on the seven model dimensions and to interpret disparities

An active tangible user interface framework for teaching and learning artificial intelligence

Interactive and tangible computing platforms have garnered increased interest in the pursuit of embedding active learning pedagogies within curricula through educational technologies. Whilst Tangible User Interface (TUI) systems have successfully been developed to edutain children in various research, TUI architectures have seen limited deployment in more complex and abstract domains. In light of these limitations, this paper proposes an active TUI framework that addresses the challenges experienced in teaching and learning artificial intelligence (AI) within higher educational institutions. The proposal extends an aptly designed tabletop TUI architecture with the novel interactive paradigm of active tangible manipulatives to provide a more engaging and effective user interaction. The paper describes the deployment of the proposed TUI framework within an undergraduate laboratory session to aid in the teaching and learning of artificial neural networks. The experiment is assessed against currently adopted educational computer software and the obtained results highlight the potential of the proposed TUI framework to augment students’ gain in knowledge and understanding of abstracted threshold concepts in higher education

Explaining multi-threaded task scheduling using tangible user interfaces in higher educational contexts

Endorsing the advantages of computer-based interaction within the educational domain, this study analysis the potential for tangible interactive technology to mitigate the challenges faced by higher educational institutes in explaining abstracted technical concepts. Implemented within a novel within the educational domain, this paper evaluates the efficacy of adopting a tangible user interface (TUI) to aid in the conceptual understanding of multi-threaded task scheduling and programming by undergraduate IT students. Making use of physical object representations, a description is provided for the distinctive development of a collaborative system that allows students to interact with and visualize the scheduling of multiple software threads onto a computer processes. The paper quantitatively studies the usefulness of the proposed TUI system with respect to traditional lectures by deploying the system within a university computing degree. Evaluation analysis of the obtained results highlight a significant improvement in the students' abilities to grasp the abstract and complex notions of multi-threading, thus validating the potential of the proposed study

Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and their effect on learning style in the creative design process

Research has shown that user characteristics such as preference for using an interface can result in effective use of the interface. Research has also suggested that there is a relationship between learner preference and creativity. This study uses the VARK learning styles inventory to assess students learning style then explores how this learning preference affect the use of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) in the creative design process