WaaZam!: supporting creative play at a distance in customized video environments

We present the design, and evaluation of WaaZam, a video mediated communication system designed to support creative play in customized environments. Users can interact together in virtual environments composed of digital assets layered in 3D space. The goal of the project is to support creative play and increase social engagement during video sessions of geographically separated families. We try to understand the value of customization for individual families with children ages 6-12. We present interviews with creativity experts, a pilot study and a formal evaluation of families playing together in four conditions: separate windows, merged windows, digital play sets, and customized digital environments. We found that playing in the same video space enables new activities and increases social engagement for families. Customization allows families to modify scenes for their needs and support more creative play activities that embody the imagination of the child

WaaZam! Supporting Creative Play at a Distance in Customized Video Environments

ABSTRACT We present the design, and evaluation of WaaZam, a video mediated communication system designed to support creative play in customized environments. Users can interact together in virtual environments composed of digital assets layered in 3D space. The goal of the project is to support creative play and increase social engagement during video sessions of geographically separated families. We try to understand the value of customization for individual families with children ages 6-12. We present interviews with creativity experts, a pilot study and a formal evaluation of families playing together in four conditions: separate windows, merged windows, digital play sets, and customized digital environments. We found that playing in the same video space enables new activities and increases social engagement for families. Customization allows families to modify scenes for their needs and support more creative play activities that embody the imagination of the child

Designing technology to promote play between parents and their infant children

PhD ThesisParents’ interaction and engagement with young children is fundamental to their healthy development. Children whose parents interact and communicate more frequently exhibit greater school readiness, better language ability, higher grades, and the ability to make friends, guarding against negative outcomes across the lifespan, such as reduced employment prospects and lower mental health. While HCI research has recently begun to address important challenges in parent-child communication, these have focused predominantly on understanding how parents use technology while parenting. However, designing technologybased interventions to support communication practices in parenting young children is largely under-explored. The research presented in this thesis investigates how technology can promote positive interaction between parents and their infant children, specifically those younger than three years old. This time of childhood is fundamental to healthy development as children progressively construct their understanding and knowledge of the world through their coordination of physical interaction with objects and their sensory experiences during this time. Play is especially crucial in this regard, being the primary method of communication between parent and child. Using three case studies, the thesis describes how I worked collaboratively with play specialists and parents to gain a rich understanding of parents’ current play practices with their children, the challenges they face when seeking to engage with their children, and the barriers to this engagement; my approach to engaging parents in to a co-creative process to build an online resource to support their needs around play; and how the design of the technology builds on how parents currently play with their children, the frenetic nature of being a parent, and the need to leverage opportunities to play as they arise rather than pre-planned play experiences. This research makes four contributions. It argues for parent-infant play to be a potentially important and viable area of research in the nascent HCI literature on parenthood. It provides a rich and detailed account of how parents’ play with their children, highlighting novel uses of technology among numerous examples of communicative play. However, it also illustrates that many parents find it difficult to play with their children. Finally, it provides rich insights in to the complexities and challenges of conducting design research with parents of infant children and the importance of engaging organisations in such long-term design engagements

All in the Family: Exploring Design Personas of Systems for Remote Communication with Preschoolers

Although there have been recent advances in remote communication technologies that foster connectedness and intimacy over a distance, systems designed for communicating with preliterate preschoolers—a desired use case—are not yet prevalent, nor are there clear guidelines for their design. We conducted a mixed-methods study to characterize the current practices, goals, and needs of people who wish to use remote communication systems with young children. We present quantitative and qualitative findings on the motivations for communicating, the habits, activities, and patterns that have been established, and the barriers and concerns faced. We synthesized these findings into four design personas that describe the desired functionality and requirements of systems to support remote communication with preschoolers. For each persona, we systematically evaluated 60 research-based systems based on the extent to which each persona’s requirements were covered, demonstrating that none of the personas were greatly satisfied with the available tools

Practical, appropriate, empirically-validated guidelines for designing educational games

There has recently been a great deal of interest in the potential of computer games to function as innovative educational tools. However, there is very little evidence of games fulfilling that potential. Indeed, the process of merging the disparate goals of education and games design appears problematic, and there are currently no practical guidelines for how to do so in a coherent manner. In this paper, we describe the successful, empirically validated teaching methods developed by behavioural psychologists and point out how they are uniquely suited to take advantage of the benefits that games offer to education. We conclude by proposing some practical steps for designing educational games, based on the techniques of Applied Behaviour Analysis. It is intended that this paper can both focus educational games designers on the features of games that are genuinely useful for education, and also introduce a successful form of teaching that this audience may not yet be familiar with

Sustainability in design: now! Challenges and opportunities for design research, education and practice in the XXI century

Copyright @ 2010 Greenleaf PublicationsLeNS project funded by the Asia Link Programme, EuropeAid, European Commission

Korean Migrant Youth Identity Work in the Transnational Social Field: A Link between Identity, Transnationalism, and New Media Literacy

Informed by the new understandings of space, culture, and identity in the fast-changing world where communication technology connects and compresses multiple spaces, this qualitative study examines how Korean migrant youth understand, negotiate, and articulate their complex identities across and beyond various borders. The research questions were: (1) What are the contexts in which migrant youth negotiate their identities? (2) How do youth understand and negotiate their sense of belonging? (3) How do youth’s cultural and literacy practices, particularly in new media, inform and shape their identities? Using an ethnographic case study design, I collected data from 32 survey participants and four core participants. Data included 32 surveys, 32 identity maps, 25 interview transcripts, 200 pages of field notes from observations, and 91 literacy documents across online and offline. A grounded theory approach and concepts of design and curatorship were used to analyze the data. Analysis demonstrated the intersections of conflict and flexibility, resistance and resilience, and vulnerability and agency in youths’ identity work. When youths’ identity was confined by the border-oriented discourses such as citizenship, race, and ethnicity, they expressed a sense of dissonance and felt that they were identified by who they are not. However, when they were able to cross national, linguistic, and cultural borders, they flexibly code-mixed and switched between languages, affiliated with audiences of diverse backgrounds, and positioned themselves resiliently. In this trans-bordering identity construction, new media played a crucial role by creating third spaces where youth could draw on their daily cultural practices, hybridizing diverse identity resources across contexts and audiences. New media served as a dialogic space for identity co-construction between youths and their audiences, an interactive learning platform, and a communicative medium for transnational relationships. Despite their relatively unsettled lives, the young migrants in this study behaved as agentive authors and designers of their identities with and in new media. Educational implications include the need to broaden the concept of literacy, to make connections between students’ lives and school curriculum, and to incorporate students’ voices in developing new pedagogy

The Transgender Exigency

At no other point in human history have the definitions of "woman" and "man," "male" and "female," "masculine" and "feminine," been more contentious than now. This book advances a pragmatic approach to the act of defining that acknowledges the important ethical dimensions of our definitional practices. Increased transgender rights and visibility has been met with increased opposition, controversy, and even violence. Who should have the power to define the meanings of sex and gender? What values and interests are advanced by competing definitions? Should an all-boys’ college or high school allow transgender boys to apply? Should transgender women be allowed to use the women’s bathroom? How has growing recognition of intersex conditions challenged our definitions of sex/gender? In this timely intervention, Edward Schiappa examines the key sites of debate including schools, bathrooms, the military, sports, prisons, and feminism, drawing attention to the political, practical, and ethical dimensions of the act of defining itself. This is an important text for students and scholars in gender studies, philosophy, communication, and sociology