Selection of touch gestures for children’s applications: repeated experiment to increase reliability

This paper discusses the selection of touch gestures for children’s applications. This research investigates the gestures that children aged between 2 to 4 years old can manage on the iPad device. Two experiments were conducted for this research. The first experiment was carried out in United Kingdom. The second experiment was carried out in Malaysia. The two similar experiments were carried out to increase the reliability and refine the result. This study shows that children aged 4 years have no problem using the 7 common gestures found in iPad applications. Some children aged 3 years have problem with two of the gestures. A high percentage of children aged 2 years struggled with the free rotate, drag & drop, pinch and spread gestures. This paper also discusses the Additional Criteria for the use of Gestures, Interface Design Components and Research on Children using iPad and Applications

SmallTalk: Using tangible interactions to gather feedback from children

Gathering opinions from young children is challenging and different methods have been explored. In this paper we investigated how tangible devices can be used to gather feedback from children in the context of a theater performance. We introduce SmallTalk, a tangible survey system designed for use within a theater space to capture what children, aged 4 to 9, thought of a live performance they had just seen. We describe how the system was designed to build on previous feedback methods that had been tried; while at the same time meeting the constraints of the challenging theater context. We present results from seven deployments of SmallTalk and based on these we briefly discuss its value as a method for evaluating the theater performance. We then look at how the results validated the system design and present several design implications that more generally relate to tangible feedback systems for children

Educación Tangible. Nuevas formas de interacción para el aprendizaje

El presente proyecto tuvo como objetivo el desarrollo de un dispositivo de interacción tangible llamado CETA (Ceibal Tangible). Esta herramienta permite a los usuarios interactuar con tablets (distribuidas por CEIBAL) por medio de la manipulación de objetos reales (fichas de plástico). Basándose en este esquema de interacción se desarrolló una aplicación. orientada a la estimulación cognitiva de las habilidades matemáticas (llamada BrUNO). Con el objetivo de poner a prueba CETA y su aplicabilidad, se desarrolló un programa de intervención en la escuela orientado a estimular las habilidades matemáticas (cardinalidad a través de tareas de composición numérica). De la misma participaron 65 escolares de 1er año de escuela. Se tomaron medidas del desempeño en matemática de los alumnos antes y después del programa. Los resultados sugieren que existió un incremento mayor en la mejora en matemáticas de los niños que jugaron a CETA en comparación con aquellos que interactuaron directamente con la pantalla (touch-screen) y quienes no realizaron ninguna actividad adicional a las previstas en el programa de estudios de ese nivel. El dispositivo desarrollado se encuentra disponible en la página web del proyecto (www.ceta.edu.uy) para ser descargado, implementado y modificado por la comunidad de educadores y desarrolladores nacionales e internacionalesAGENCIA NACIONAL DE INVESTIGACIÓN E INNOVACIÓN (ANII)- CENTRO DE ESTUDIOS FUNDACIÓN CEIBAL. FONDO SECTORIAL EDUCACIÓN DIGITA

Tangible Interfaces for Learning:Training Spatial Skills in Vocational Classrooms

There have been many claims that Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) can have a positive impact on learning. Alleged benefits include increasing usability, improving engagement and collaboration of students, and providing a better perception of the task, especially spatial ones. However, there exists little empirical data to back up these claims. Moreover, for all their potential benefits for learning, TUIs are still scarcely used in schools. This thesis explores these two issues in the specific context of vocational education and training of carpenter apprentices. The learning objectives concern spatial skills and in particular, the mapping between 2D and 3D representations. We study (1) whether TUIs can support the training of spatial skills, and if so what features allow them to do so, and (2) what kinds of classroom pedagogical scenarios TUIs can support. We follow a design-based research approach and run empirical studies, mostly in classrooms. The contributions of this thesis touch on three research domains: 1. Spatial skills. Our results show that TUIs can help teach spatial skills to carpenter apprentices. The tangible nature of TUIs can help the learner relate multiple representations of an object, especially for difficult problems. It can also lower the barrier to entry into a learning domain for beginners. 2. Learning with TUIs. According to our results, TUIs can benefit learning, but the mere fact of using TUIs does not guarantee learning. Instead, special attention needs to be given to the design of the TUI. Small design variations, such as the physical correspondence between the tangible object and its virtual representations, or the type and timing of feedback given to the user, can have a significant impact on learning. 3. Classroom technologies and orchestration. We explore several classroom pedagogical scenarios that TUIs can support. The most promising one is to use a TUI as part of a hybrid classroom learning activity that includes both TUI and non TUI steps. Additionally, we devise two ways to promote the integration of TUIs in classroom. First, we introduce 5 design principles that reduce the classroom orchestration load. Second, we show how new web technologies can be used to deploy TUIs in schools at a lower cost