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

Non-visual Virtual Reality: Considerations for the Pedagogical Design of Embodied Mathematical Experiences for Visually Impaired Children

Digital developments that foreground the sensory body and movement interaction offer new ways of engaging with mathematical ideas. Theories of embodied cognition argue for the important role of sensorimotor interaction in underpinning cognition. For visually impaired children this is particularly promising, since it provides opportunities for grounding mathematical ideas in bodily experience. The use of iVR technologies for visually impaired children is not immediately evident, given the central role of vision in immersive virtual worlds. This paper presents an iterative, design-based case study with visually impaired children to inform the pedagogical design of embodied learning experiences in iVR. Drawing from embodied pedagogy, it explores the process of implementing a classroom-based non-visual VR experience, designed to give visually impaired children an embodied experience of position in terms of Cartesian co-ordinates as they move around a virtual space. Video recordings of interaction combined with feedback from teachers and children contribute to knowledge of iVR learning applications in formal settings by discerning three types of pedagogical practices: creation of a performance space introduction of performative actions and action connected diverse perspectives

The Construction of Locative Situations: the Production of Agency in Locative Media Art Practice

This thesis is a practice led enquiry into Locative Media (LM) which argues that this emergent art practice has played an influential role in the shaping of locative technologies in their progression from new to everyday technologies. The research traces LM to its origins at the Karosta workshops, reviews the stated objectives of early practitioners and the ambitions of early projects, establishing it as a coherent art movement located within established traditions of technological art and of situated art practice. Based on a prescient analysis of the potential for ubiquitous networked location-awareness, LM developed an ambitious program aimed at repositioning emergent locative technologies as tools which enhance and augment space rather than surveil and control. Drawing on Krzysztof Ziarek\u27s treatment of avant-garde art and technology in The Force of Art , theories of technology drawn from Science and Technology Studies (STS) and software studies, the thesis builds an argument for the agency of Locative Media. LM is positioned as an interface layer which in connecting the user to the underlying functionality of locative technologies offers alternative interpretations, introduces new usage modes, and ultimately shifts the understanding and meaning of the technology. Building on the Situationist concept of the constructed situation, with reference to an ongoing body of practice, an experimental practice-based framework for LM art is advanced which accounts for its agency and, it is proposed, preserves this agency in a rapidly developing field

Playing with World War II: A Small-Scale Study of Learning in Video Games

Out of all the K-12 disciplines, History is positioned to benefit the most from integrating games into the classroom because while school-based history is considered to be the most boring subject amongst today’s young people (Loewen, 1995), history-themed video games continue to be best-sellers. This article explores how mediated action theory, in particular Wertsch’s (1998) ideas regarding mastery and appropriation, can yield particular insights around the different kinds of learning that can happen by playing history-themed video games. The data used here was collected as part of a small-scale case study that asked four self-proclaimed “history gamers” to talk about this perceived connection between their play of WWII games and learning history. I provide an overview of mediated action and make a case for its suitability as an analytical framework to examine game-based learning, with a special focus on mastery and appropriation as defined by Wertsch (1998). This will be followed by case-specific findings on how players of WWII FPS games can appropriate these games to learn about WWII history. Suggestions on future research trajectories on history-themed games and game-based learning, as well as other uses of mediated action theory, will be discussed at the end

Hybrid Museum Experiences

"So you’re the one getting this gift? Lucky you! Someone who knows you has visited the museum. They searched out things they thought you would care about, and they took photos and left messages for you.” This is the welcoming message for the Gift app, designed to create a very personal museum visit. Hybrid Museum Experiences use new technologies to augment, expand or alter the physical experience of visiting the museum. They are designed to be experienced in close relation to the physical space and exhibit. In this book we discuss three forms of hybridity in museum experiences: incorporating the digital and the physical, creating social, yet personal and intimate experiences, and exploring ways to balance visitor participation and museum curation. The book reports on a three-year cross-disciplinary research project in which artists, design researchers and museum professionals have collaborated to create technology-mediated experiences that merge with the museum environment