Exploring Visual Cues for Intuitive Communicability of Touch Gestures to Pre-kindergarten Children

© ACM, 2014. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in ACM In Proceedings of the Ninth ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces (pp. 159-162). http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2669485.2669523Pre-kindergarten children are becoming frequent users of multi-touch technology and, according to previous studies they are able to perform several multi-touch gestures successfully. However, they do not use these devices supervised at all times. Consequently, interactive applications for pre-kindergarteners need to convey their underlying design intent and interactive principles with respect to touch interaction. In this paper, we present and evaluate two approaches to communicate three different touch gestures (tap, drag and scale up) to pre-kindergarten users. Our results show, firstly, that it is possible to effectively communicate them using visual cues and, secondly, that an animated semiotic approach is better than an iconic one.Work supported by the MINECO (grant TIN2010-20488) and GVA VALi+d program (grant APOSTD/2013/013).Nácher Soler, VE.; Jaén Martínez, FJ.; Catalá Bolós, A. (2014). Exploring Visual Cues for Intuitive Communicability of Touch Gestures to Pre-kindergarten Children. ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/2669485.2669523SBaloian, N., Pino, J. A., and Vargas, R. Tablet gestures as a motivating factor for learning. In Proc. ChileCHI'13, (2013), 98--103.Hofmeester, K., and Wolfe, J. Self-revealing gestures: teaching new touch interactions in windows 8. In ACM CHI EA '12 (2012), 815--828Kähkönen, M. and Ovaska, S. Initial observations on children and online instructions. In Proc. IDC '06, (2006), 93.Lee, R. Gestures. http://gesturecons.com/.Levine, S.C., Huttenlocher, J., Taylor, A., and Langrock, A. Early sex differences in spatial skill. Developmental Psychology, 35, (1999) 940--949.McKnight, L. and Fitton, D. Touch-screen technology for children: Giving the Right Instructions and Getting the Right Responses. In Proc. IDC '10, ACM Press (2010), 238.Niemi, H. and Ovaska, S. Designing spoken instructions with preschool children. In Proc. IDC '07, (2007), 133.Prates, R.O., de Souza, C.S., and Barbosa, S.D.J. Methods and tools: a method for evaluating the communicability of user interfaces. Interactions 7, 1 (2000), 31--38.Rideout, V. Zero to Eight: Children's Media Use in America. Common Sense Media, 2011.Walter, R., Bailly, G. and Müller, J. StrikeAPose: Revealing Mid-Air Gestures on Public Displays. In Proc. ACM CHI'13 (2013), 841--850

Kindertivity: Usability and Communicability Strategies for Interactive Surfaces and Pre-Kindergarten Children

Tesis por compendio[ES] La tecnología multi-táctil se ha convertido en una de las más emergentes tras experimentar un enorme crecimiento desde sus pasos iniciales en los años ochenta hasta su amplia aceptación y uso en la actualidad. Por una parte, la tecnología multi-táctil se basa en el estilo de interacción de manipulación directa el cual proporciona a los usuarios la ventaja de ver los objetos y las acciones de interés, sustituir comandos escritos por acciones de señalado y, además, permite la realización de acciones rápidas, reversibles e incrementales evitando el uso de instrucciones complejas. Por otra parte, diversos trabajos han evaluado las virtudes derivadas de utilizar conjuntamente la manipulación directa con el toque directo mostrando que es posible evitar los problemas inherentes a otras técnicas de interacción como el ratón y el teclado. Por lo tanto, aprovechando la interacción natural e intuitiva proporcionada por la tecnología multi-táctil, ésta parece una forma ideal para dar soporte a la creación de escenarios educativos dirigidos a niños en edad preescolar. Sin embargo, a pesar de la existencia de diversos estudios que evalúan la idoneidad de utilizar el estilo de interacción de manipulación directa, existe una falta de trabajos abordando el uso dispositivos basados en superficies táctiles con niños de una temprana edad. Asimismo, en la actualidad existe una creciente tendencia a diseñar aplicaciones educativas y lúdicas dirigidas a niños en edad preescolar utilizando dispositivos multi-táctiles como los teléfonos inteligentes o las tabletas. Además, diversos informes señalan que los niños son usuarios frecuentes de este tipo de dispositivos y los utilizan incluso antes de ser capaces de hablar. Sin embargo, a pesar de este crecimiento en el uso de la tecnología multi-táctil y su aparente idoneidad para ser utilizado en el desarrollo de aplicaciones educativas para niños en edad preescolar, no existen unas interacciones universales y estandarizadas para preescolares a la hora de utilizar dispositivos táctiles ya que habitualmente sólo se utilizan dos gestos básicos (básicamente, el toque con un dedo para seleccionar y el arrastre con un dedo para el movimiento). Por lo tanto, existe una clara necesidad de llevar a cabo estudios empíricos para contribuir y avanzar en el diseño de aplicaciones que den un soporte adecuado y encaje con las habilidades de los niños en su temprano desarrollo. Por tanto, esta tesis propone, diseña y evalúa diversas estrategias de usabilidad y comunicabilidad adaptadas a los niños en edad preescolar para establecer la base para el diseño y desarrollo de futuras aplicaciones basadas en dispositivos táctiles dirigidas a preescolares. Estas estrategias llevarán a la adecuada definición de guías de diseño que permitirán a los niños aprovechar al máximo la tecnología multi-táctil, harán posible el desarrollo de nuevas y atractivas aplicaciones y, eventualmente, también podrán ayudar al desarrollo cognitivo y motor de los niños.[CA] La tecnologia multi-tàctil s'ha convertit en una de les més emergents després d'experimentar un enorme creixement des dels seus passos inicials als anys vuitanta fins l'actualitat on es àmpliament acceptada i utilitzada. D'una banda, la tecnologia multi-tàctil es basa en l'estil d'interacció de manipulació directa, el qual proporciona als usuaris l'avantatge de veure els objectes i les accions d'interès, substituir comandos escrits per accions d'assenyalament i, a més, permet la realització d'accions, ràpides, reversibles i incrementals evitant l'ús d'instruccions complexes. D'altra banda, diversos treballs han avaluat les virtuts derivades d'utilitzar conjuntament la manipulació directa amb el toc directe mostrant que és possible evitar els problemes inherents a altres tècniques d'interacció com el ratolí i el teclat. Per tant, aprofitant la interacció natural i intuïtiva proporcionada per la tecnologia multi-tàctil, aquesta sembla una forma ideal per donar suport a la creació d'escenaris educatius per a xiquets en edat preescolar. No obstant això, malgrat l'existència de diversos estudis que avaluen la idoneïtat d'utilitzar l'estil d'interacció de manipulació directa, existeix una manca de treballs abordant l'ús de dispositius basats en superfícies tàctils amb xiquets d'edat primerenca. Així mateix, en l'actualitat existeix una creixent tendència a dissenyar aplicacions educatives i lúdiques dirigides a xiquets en edat preescolar utilitzant dispositius tàctils com els telèfons intel¿ligents o les tauletes. A més, diversos informes assenyalen que els xiquets són usuaris freqüents d'aquests tipus de dispositius i els utilitzen fins i tot abans de ser capaços de parlar. Malgrat aquest creixement en l'ús de la tecnologia multi-tàctil i la seua aparent idoneïtat per a ser utilitzada en el desenvolupament d'aplicacions educatives per a xiquets en edat preescolar, no existeixen unes interaccions universals i estandarditzades per a preescolars a l'hora d'utilitzar dispositius tàctils ja que habitualment només s'utilitzen dos gestos bàsics (bàsicament, el toc amb un dit per a seleccionar i l'arrossegament amb un dit per al moviment). Per tant, hi ha una clara necessitat de dur a terme estudis empírics per a contribuir i avançar en el disseny d'aplicacions que donen un suport adequat i s'ajusten amb les habilitats dels xiquets en el seu primerenc desenvolupament. Per tant, la tesi proposa, dissenya i avalua diverses estratègies de usabilitat i comunicabilitat adaptades als xiquets en edat preescolar per tal d'establir la base per al disseny i desenvolupament de futures aplicacions basades en dispositius tàctils dirigides a preescolars. Aquestes estratègies portaran a l'adequada definició de guies de disseny que permetran als xiquets aprofitar al màxim la tecnologia multi-tàctil, faran possible el desenvolupament de noves i atractives aplicacions i, eventualment, podran també ajudar al desenvolupament cognitiu i motor dels xiquets.[EN] Multi-touch technology has become one of the most emergent technologies and has had an enormous growth since its initial steps in the eighties to be widespread accepted and used in the present. On the one hand, multi-touch technology relies on the direct manipulation interaction style which gives users the advantage to view the objects and actions of interest, replace typed commands by pointing actions and to perform rapid, reversible and incremental actions avoiding using complex instructions. On the other hand, several works have evaluated the virtues when joining direct manipulation with direct-touching showing that it solves the problems inherent in other interaction devices, such as those involving mouse or keyboard. Hence, taking advantage of the intuitive and natural interaction provided by multi-touch technology it seems an ideal way to support educational scenarios targeted to kindergarten children. Although several works have assessed the suitability of using the direct manipulation style with children, there is a lack of works addressing the use of touchscreen devices by this specific type of users. Moreover, there is a growing trend of designing educational and playful applications targeted to kindergarten children based on touchscreen devices such as smartphones and tablets. In addition, several reports point out that children use touchscreen devices even before they are able to speak and they are frequent users of devices such as smartphones and tablets. However, despite this growth in the use of multi-touch technology by children and its apparent suitability to be used to develop applications targeted to young children, there is a lack of standardized and universally accepted interactions for young children when using touchscreen devices since only two basic gestures are commonly used (basically, consisting of only one-finger touch for selection and one-finger drag for movement). Hence, there is a need of carrying out empirical studies to help and advance in the design of applications that adequately support and fit with children's development and skills. Therefore, this thesis proposes, designs and evaluates several usability and communicability strategies tailored to children in their early development stage to establish the design and development of future applications targeted to kindergarten children. These strategies will lead to define appropriate design strategies that enable infants to take full advantage of multi-touch technology, would make it possible to develop attractive new applications and, eventually, could also aid children's cognitive and motor development.Nácher Soler, VE. (2019). Kindertivity: Usability and Communicability Strategies for Interactive Surfaces and Pre-Kindergarten Children [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/116833TESISCompendi

Improving Pre-Kindergarten Touch Performance

© ACM, 2014. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in ACM In Proceedings of the Ninth ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces (pp. 163-166). http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2669485.2669498Multi-touch technology provides users with a more intuitive way of interaction. However, pre-kindergarten children, a growing group of potential users, have problems with some basic gestures according to previous studies. This is particularly the case of the double tap and long pressed gestures, which have some issues related to spurious entry events and time-constrained interactions, respectively. In this paper, we empirically test specific strategies to deal with these issues by evaluating off-the-shelf implementations of these gestures against alternative implementations that follow these guidelines. The study shows that the implementation of these design guidelines has a positive effect on success rates of these two gestures, being feasible their inclusion in future multi-touch applications targeted at pre-kindergarten children.This work received financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Education under the National Strategic Program of Research and Projects TIN2010-20488 (CREATEWORLD) and TIN2012-34003 (insPIre). This work is also supported by a postdoctoral fellowship within the VALi+d program from Conselleria d’Educació, Cultura i Esport (Generalitat Valenciana) to A. Catalá (APOSTD/2013/013).Nácher Soler, VE.; Jaén Martínez, FJ.; Catalá Bolós, A.; Navarro, E.; González, P. (2014). Improving Pre-Kindergarten Touch Performance. ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/2669485.2669498SCouse, L.J. and Chen, D.W. A Tablet Computer for Young Children? Exploring Its Viability for Early Childhood Education. Journal of Research on Technology in Education 43, 1 (2010), 75--98.Harris, A., Rick, J., Bonnett, V., et al. Around the table: are multiple-touch surfaces better than single-touch for children's collaborative interactions? In Proc. CSCL'09, 335--344.Hoggan, E., Nacenta, M., Kristensson, P.O., Williamson, J., Oulasvirta, A., and Lehtiö, A. MultiTouch Pinch Gestures: Performance and Ergonomics. In Proc. ITS'13, 219--222.Hoggan, E., Williamson, J., Oulasvirta, A., Nacenta, M., Kristensson, P.O., and Lehtiö, A. Multi-Touch Rotation Gestures: Performance and Ergonomics. In Proc. CHI'13, 3--6.Nacenta, M.A., Baudisch, P., Benko, H., and Wilson, A. Separability of Spatial Manipulations in Multi-touch Interfaces. In Proc. GI'09, 175--182.Nacher, V., Jaen, J., Navarro, E., Catala, A., and González, P. Multi-touch gestures for pre-kindergarten children. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies. Available online http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2014.08.004Rideout, V. Zero to Eight: Children's Media Use in America. Common Sense Media, 2011.Smith, S.P., Burd, E., and Rick, J. Developing, evaluating and deploying multi-touch systems. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 70, 10 (2012), 653--656.Terra, D., Brinkman, W.P., and Heynderickx, I. Ease-ofUse and Enjoyment of Traditional vs. Stylus Input for Children in a Brazilian Primary School. LatinDisplay, (2009), 151--155

Multi-touch Technology in Early Childhood: Current Trends and Future Challenges

© ACM 2015. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive Version of Record was published in Interacción '15 Proceedings of the XVI International Conference on Human Computer Interactionhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1145/{10.1145/2829875.2829887The advantages of the direct manipulation style make the multi-touch technology an ideal mechanism to support learning activities for children. Moreover, although pre-kindergarten children are becoming frequent users of the technology little work has been done in the area to assess their actual abilities. This paper goes over the state of the art of multi-touch technology targeting pre-kindergarten children and its use for educational purposes. In addition, in this work we present future challenges that should be faced in the area in the near future to establish the basis on which designers will develop educational applications for children that fully exploit the multi-touch technology according to the actual abilities of pre-kindergarten children.Work supported by the MINECO (grants TIN2010-20488 and TIN2014-60077-R) and from GVA (ACIF/2015/075).Nácher-Soler, VE.; Jaén Martínez, FJ. (2015). Multi-touch Technology in Early Childhood: Current Trends and Future Challenges. ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/2829875.2829887SAbdul Aziz, N.A., Batmaz, F., Stone, R., and Paul, C. Selection of touch gestures for children's applications. Proc. of SIC'13, 721--726.Abdul Aziz, N.A., Mat, N.S., Batmaz, F., Stone, R., and Paul, C. Selection of Touch Gestures for Children's Applications: Repeated Experiment to Increase Reliability. International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications 5, 4 (2014), 97--102.Baloian, N., Pino, J. a., and Vargas, R. Tablet gestures as a motivating factor for learning. Proc. of ChileCHI'13, 98--103.Bebell, D., Dorris, S., and Muir, M. Emerging Results From The Nation's First Kindergarten Implementation of iPads. Auburn, 2012.Buxton, B. Multi-touch systems that I have known and loved. 2013. http://billbuxton.com/multitouchOverview.html.Chiong, C. and Shuler, C. Learning: Is there an app for that? Investigations of young children's usage and learning with mobile devices and apps. New York, 2010.Common Sense Media. Zero to Eight: Childrens Media Use in America 2013. 2013.Egloff, T.H. Edutainment: a case study of interactive cd-rom playsets. Computers in Entertainment 2, 1 (2004), 13.Hinrichs, U. and Carpendale, S. Gestures in the wild: studying multi-touch gesture sequences on interactive tabletop exhibits. Proc. of CHI'11, 3023--3032.Hourcade, J.P. Interaction Design and Children. Foundations and Trends® in Human-Computer Interaction 1, 4 (2007), 277--392.Ingram, A., Wang, X., and Ribarsky, W. Towards the establishment of a framework for intuitive multi-touch interaction design. Proc. of AVI'12, 66--73.Johnson, L., Adams, S., and Cummins, M. The NMC Horizon Report: 2012 K-12. The New Media Consortium, Austin, Texas, 2012.Kammer, D., Dang, R., Steinhauf, J., and Groh, R. Investigating interaction with tabletops in kindergarten environments. Proc. of IDC'14, 57--66.Knoche, H., Rasmussen, N.A., and Boldreel, K. Do Interactions Speak Louder than Words? Dialogic Reading of an Interactive Tablet-based E-book with Children between 16 Months and Three Years of Age. Proc. of IDC'14, 285--288.Kremer, K.E. Conducting Game User Experience Research with Preschoolers. Workshop on Games User Research: practice, methods, and applications (collocated to CHI'12).Nacher, V., Jaen, J., Catala, A., Navarro, E., and Gonzalez, P. Improving Pre-Kindergarten Touch Performance. Proc. of ITS '14, 163--166.Nacher, V., Jaen, J., and Catala, A. Exploring Visual Cues for Intuitive Communicability of Touch Gestures to Pre-kindergarten Children. Proc. of ITS '14, 159--162.Nacher, V., Jaen, J., Navarro, E., Catala, A., and González, P. Multi-touch gestures for pre-kindergarten children. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 73, (2015), 37--51.Piaget, J.The Child and Reality. Grossman, New York, 1973.Rushton, S. and Juola-Rushton, A. Classroom Learning Environment, Brain Research and The No Child Left Behind Initiative: 6 years Later. Early Childhood Education Journal 36, 1 (2008), 87--92.Shneiderman, B., Plaisant, C., Cohen, M., and Jacobs, S. Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction. Prentice Hall, 2009.Shuler, C. iLearn II: An Analysis of the Education Category of the iTunes App Store. The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, New York, 2012.Smith, S.P., Burd, E., and Rick, J. Developing, evaluating and deploying multi-touch systems. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 70, 10 (2012), 653--656.Vatavu, R., Cramariuc, G., and Schipor, D.M. Touch interaction for children aged 3 to 6 years: Experimental findings and relationship to motor skills. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 74, (2015), 54--76.Wakefield, J. and Smith, D. From Socrates to Satellites: iPad Learning in an Undergraduate Course. Creative Education 03, 05 (2012), 643--648.Wolock, E., Ann Orr, E.D., and Buckleitner, W. Child development 101 for the developers of interactive media. Active Learning Associates, Inc., 2006.Zaranis, N., Kalogiannakis, M., and Papadakis, S. Using Mobile Devices for Teaching Realistic Mathematics in Kindergarten Education. Creative Education 04, 07 (2013), 1--10

Evaluating Simultaneous Visual Instructions with Kindergarten Children on Touchscreen Devices

[EN] A myriad of educational applications using tablets and multi-touch technology for kindergarten children have been developed in the last decade. However, despite the possible benefits of using visual prompts to communicate information to kindergarteners, these visual techniques have not been fully studied yet. This article therefore investigates kindergarten children¿s abilities to understand and follow several visual prompts about how to proceed and interact in a virtual 2D world. The results show that kindergarteners are able to effectively understand several visual prompts with different communication purposes despite being used simultaneously. The results also show that the use of the evaluated visual prompts to communicate data when playing reduces the number of interferences about technical nature fostering dialogues related to the learning activity guided by the instructors or caregivers. Hence, this work is a starting point for designing dialogic learning scenarios tailored to kindergarten children.This work is supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and funded by the European Development Regional Fund (EDRF-FEDER) with Project TIN2014-60077-R; by VALi+d program from Conselleria d¿Educació, Cultura i Esport (Generalitat Valenciana) under the fellowship ACIF/2014/214, and by the FPU program from Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sport under the fellowship FPU14/00136Nácher, V.; García-Sanjuan, F.; Jaén Martínez, FJ. (2020). Evaluating Simultaneous Visual Instructions with Kindergarten Children on Touchscreen Devices. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction. 36(1):41-54. https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2019.1597576S4154361Allen, R., & Scofield, J. (2010). Word learning from videos: more evidence from 2-year-olds. Infant and Child Development, 19(6), 649-661. doi:10.1002/icd.712Cristia, A., & Seidl, A. (2015). Parental Reports on Touch Screen Use in Early Childhood. PLOS ONE, 10(6), e0128338. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0128338Derboven, J., De Roeck, D., & Verstraete, M. (2012). Semiotic analysis of multi-touch interface design: The MuTable case study. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 70(10), 714-728. doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2012.05.005Egloff, T. H. (2004). Edutainment. Computers in Entertainment, 2(1), 13-13. doi:10.1145/973801.973822Fernández-López, Á., Rodríguez-Fórtiz, M. J., Rodríguez-Almendros, M. L., & Martínez-Segura, M. J. (2013). Mobile learning technology based on iOS devices to support students with special education needs. Computers & Education, 61, 77-90. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2012.09.014Furió, D., González-Gancedo, S., Juan, M.-C., Seguí, I., & Rando, N. (2013). Evaluation of learning outcomes using an educational iPhone game vs. traditional game. Computers & Education, 64, 1-23. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2012.12.001Hanna, L., Risden, K., & Alexander, K. (1997). Guidelines for usability testing with children. Interactions, 4(5), 9-14. doi:10.1145/264044.264045Honomichl, R. D., & Chen, Z. (2012). The role of guidance in children’s discovery learning. WIREs Cognitive Science, 3(6), 615-622. doi:10.1002/wcs.1199Hourcade, J. P. (2007). Interaction Design and Children. Foundations and Trends® in Human-Computer Interaction, 1(4), 277-392. doi:10.1561/1100000006Ioannou, A., Zaphiris, P., Loizides, F., & Vasiliou, C. (2013). Let’S Talk About Technology for Peace: A Systematic Assessment of Problem-Based Group Collaboration Around an Interactive Tabletop. Interacting with Computers, 27(2), 120-132. doi:10.1093/iwc/iwt061Keenan, T., Ruffman, T., & Olson, D. R. (1994). When do children begin to understand logical inference as a source of knowledge? Cognitive Development, 9(3), 331-353. doi:10.1016/0885-2014(94)90010-8Levine, S. C., Huttenlocher, J., Taylor, A., & Langrock, A. (1999). Early sex differences in spatial skill. Developmental Psychology, 35(4), 940-949. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.35.4.940Nacher, V., Garcia-Sanjuan, F., & Jaen, J. (2016). Interactive technologies for preschool game-based instruction: Experiences and future challenges. Entertainment Computing, 17, 19-29. doi:10.1016/j.entcom.2016.07.001Nacher, V., Jaen, J., & Catala, A. (2016). Evaluating Multitouch Semiotics to Empower Prekindergarten Instruction with Interactive Surfaces. Interacting with Computers, 29(2), 97-116. doi:10.1093/iwc/iww007Nacher, V., Jaen, J., Navarro, E., Catala, A., & González, P. (2015). Multi-touch gestures for pre-kindergarten children. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 73, 37-51. doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2014.08.004Nacher, V., Jurdi, S., Jaen, J., & Garcia-Sanjuan, F. (2019). Exploring visual prompts for communicating directional awareness to kindergarten children. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 126, 14-25. doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2019.01.003Neumann, M. M. (2017). Parent scaffolding of young children’s use of touch screen tablets. Early Child Development and Care, 188(12), 1654-1664. doi:10.1080/03004430.2016.1278215Pecora, N., Murray, J. P., & Wartella, E. A. (Eds.). (2009). Children and Television. doi:10.4324/9781410618047Plowman, L., Stevenson, O., Stephen, C., & McPake, J. (2012). Preschool children’s learning with technology at home. Computers & Education, 59(1), 30-37. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2011.11.014Smith, S. P., Burd, E., & Rick, J. (2012). Developing, evaluating and deploying multi-touch systems. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 70(10), 653-656. doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2012.07.002Van der Meij, H., & van der Meij, J. (2014). A comparison of paper-based and video tutorials for software learning. Computers & Education, 78, 150-159. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2014.06.003Vatavu, R.-D., Cramariuc, G., & Schipor, D. M. (2015). Touch interaction for children aged 3 to 6 years: Experimental findings and relationship to motor skills. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 74, 54-76. doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2014.10.00

Exploring visual prompts for communicating directional awareness to kindergarten children

[EN] Although a myriad of educational applications using tablets and multi-touch technology for kindergarten children have been developed in the last decade, most of these applications do not fully exploit multi-touch technology since the game world used is limited to the screen only. Considering a larger digital space in tablet-based educational scenarios would be beneficial since it would enable the design of engaging activities driven by curiosity, exploration, discovery and decisions on where the next action is situated in the digital virtual space by directional awareness. This paper therefore investigates kindergarten children's abilities to use a virtual world beyond the screen and evaluates three different types of visual prompts for communicating directional awareness. The results obtained show, firstly, that these specific users are able to use the space beyond the screen boundaries and that the evaluated prompts can effectively communicate information to kindergarten children. The paper also makes a set of recommendations to help designers choose the appropriate type of prompt for their application requirements.This work received financial support from Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and was funded by the European Development Regional Fund (EDRF-FEDER) in the project TIN2014-60077-R (SUPEREMOS). This work is also supported by a pre-doctoral fellowship within the FPU program from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports to V. Nacher (FPU14/00136) and from GVA (ACIF/2014/214) to F. Garcia-Sanjuan.Nácher-Soler, VE.; Jurdi, S.; Jaén Martínez, FJ.; García Sanjuan, F. (2019). Exploring visual prompts for communicating directional awareness to kindergarten children. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies. 126:14-25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2019.01.003S142512

KINDERTIVITY: Using Interactive Surfaces to Foster Creativity in Pre-kindergarten Children

© Owner/Author 2015. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive Version of Record was published in {Interacción '15 Proceedings of the XVI International Conference on Human Computer Interactionhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1145/10.1145/2829875.2829881Taking into account the existent educative and pedagogical techniques, which have proved its effectiveness to foster the innovation and creativity, this thesis poses to develop, experiment and evaluate a new technological framework based on interactive surfaces to be applied in the context of preschool education. The goal is to facilitate the three factors required for creative learning: knowledge, creative thinking and motivation but taking into account the cognitive and interaction limitations of these very young users.Work supported by the MINECO (grants TIN2010-20488 and TIN2014-60077-R) and from GVA (ACIF/2015/075).Nácher-Soler, VE.; Jaén Martínez, FJ. (2015). KINDERTIVITY: Using Interactive Surfaces to Foster Creativity in Pre-kindergarten Children. ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/2829875.2829881SBuxton, B. Multi-touch systems that I have known and loved. 2013. http://billbuxton.com/multitouchOverview.html.Catala, A., Jaen, J., van Dijk, B., and Jordà, S. Exploring tabletops as an effective tool to foster creativity traits. In Proc. of TEI'12, pp. 143--150.Comisión Europea. Conclusiones del Consejo de 12 de mayo de 2009 sobre un marco estratégico para la cooperación europea en el ámbito de la educación y la formación («ET 2020»). 2009.Common Sense Media. Zero to Eight: Childrens Media Use in America 2013. 2013.Cropley, A.J. Creativity in Education and Learning: A Guide for Teachers and Educators. Kogan Page, (2001).Damon, W., Lerner, R.M., Kuhn, D., and Siegler, R.S., eds. Handbook of Child Psychology, Volume 2, Cognition, Perception, and Language. Wiley, 2006.Fleck, R., Rogers, Y., Yuill, N., et al. Actions speak loudly with words. Proc. of ITS'09, pp. 189--196.Helmes, J., Cao, X., Lindley, S.E., and Sellen, A. Developing the story. Proc. of ITS'09, pp. 49--52.Hourcade, J.P. Interaction Design and Children. Foundations and Trends® in Human-Computer Interaction 1, 4 (2007), 277--392.Johnson, L., Adams, S., and Cummins, M. The NMC Horizon Report: 2012 K-12. The New Media Consortium, Austin, Texas, 2012.Khandelwal, M. and Mazalek, A. Teaching table: a tangible mentor for pre-k math education. Proc. of TEI'07, 191--194.Mansor, E.I., De Angeli, A., and De Bruijn, O. Little fingers on the tabletop: A usability evaluation in the kindergarten. Proc. of TABLETOP'08, 93--96.Nacher, V., Jaen, J., & Catala, A. (2014). Exploring Visual Cues for Intuitive Communicability of Touch Gestures to Pre-kindergarten Children. Proc. of ITS'14, 159--162.Nacher, V., Jaen, J., Navarro, E., Catala, A., and González, P. Multi-touch gestures for pre-kindergarten children. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 73 (2015), 37--51.Nacher, V., Jaen, J., Catala, A., Navarro, E., and Gonzalez, P. Improving Pre-Kindergarten Touch Performance. Proc. of ITS '14, 163--166..Rick, J., Francois, P., Fields, B., Fleck, R., Yuill, N., and Carr, A. Lo-fi prototyping to design interactive-tabletop applications for children. Proc. of IDC'10, pp. 138--146.Rick, J. and Rogers, Y. From DigiQuilt to DigiTile: Adapting educational technology to a multi-touch table. Proc. of TABLETOP'08, pp. 73--80.Sluis, R.J.W., Weevers, I., van Schijndel, C.H.G.J., Kolos-Mazuryk, L., Fitrianie, S., and Martens, J.B.O.S. Read-It: Five-to-seven-year-old children learn to read in a tabletop environment. Proc. of IDC'04, pp. 73--80.Smith, S.P., Burd, E., and Rick, J. Developing, evaluating and deploying multi-touch systems. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 70, 10 (2012), 653--656

Interactive technologies for preschool game-based instruction: Experiences and future challenges

This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Entertainment Computing. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Entertainment Computing, vol. 17 (2016). DOI 10.1016/j.entcom.2016.07.001.[EN] According to current kindergarten curricula, game play is an important basis for children development and it is the main driving force when designing educational activities during early childhood. This paper presents a review of the current state of the art of game technologies that support pre-kindergarten and kindergarten children development. Moreover, the most emergent technologies for developing educational games for preschool children are identified and a set of future challenges are discussed. The main goal of this work is to review the state of the art in interactive technologies which will help educators, game designers and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) experts in the area of game-based kindergarten instruction. 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.This work received financial support from Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and funded by the European Development Regional Fund (EDRF-FEDER) with the project TIN2014-60077-R (SUPEREMOS). This work is also supported by a predoctoral fellowship within the FPU program from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports to V. Nacher (FPU14/00136) and from GVA (ACIF/2014/214) to F. Garcia-Sanjuan.Nácher-Soler, VE.; García Sanjuan, F.; Jaén Martínez, FJ. (2016). Interactive technologies for preschool game-based instruction: Experiences and future challenges. Entertainment Computing. 17:19-29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.entcom.2016.07.001S19291

Game Technologies for Kindergarten Instruction: Experiences and Future Challenges

[EN] Games are an ideal mechanism to design educational activities with preschool children. Moreover, an analysis of current kindergarten curricula points out that playing and games are an important basis for children development. This paper presents a review of works that use games for kindergarten instruction and analyses their underlying technologies. In addition, in this work we present future challenges to be faced for each technology under consideration focusing on the specific needs and abilities these very demanding users have. The end goal is to outline a collection of future research directions for educators, game designers and HCI experts in the area of game-based kindergarten instruction supported by new technologies.This work received financial support from Spanish MINECO (projects TIN2010-20488 and TIN2014-60077-R), from Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV-FE-2014-24), and from GVA (ACIF/2014/214).Nácher-Soler, VE.; García Sanjuan, F.; Jaén Martínez, FJ. (2015). Game Technologies for Kindergarten Instruction: Experiences and Future Challenges. CEUR Workshop Proceedings. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/74255

Design and Evaluation of a Tangible-Mediated Robot for Kindergarten Instruction

© ACM 2015. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive Version of Record was published in ACE '15 Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2832932.2832952Entertainment technology increases children’s engagement in educational activities designed to develop abilities ranging from collaborative problem-solving and cognitive attention to self-esteem. However, little research has been done on designing educational and entertaining interactive technology for kindergarten children (up to 5 years old). Furthermore, most of the work in this area has considered traditional input devices such as the mouse and keyboard, which are not suitable for these very young children. More recently, other more intuitive means of interaction (touch and tangible interfaces) and advanced educational artifacts such as robots have emerged. In this work we therefore present a joint collaboration between technologists and kindergarten instructors to design and evaluate a technological platform using a mobile robot for kindergarten instruction, as well as an intuitive and user-friendly tangible user interface. The results obtained suggest the platform is not only usable by kindergarten children, but it also allows them to be fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In addition, the instructors reported that the system was well accepted and praised its versatility in use as a supporting tool for their everyday classroom activities.This work is funded by the European Development Regional Fund (EDRF-FEDER) and supported by Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness with Project TIN2014-60077-R, and from Universitat Politècnica de València under Project UPV-FE-2014-24. 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