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

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

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

Learning motivation for slow learners with tablet technology

Vertically Aligned Carbon Nanotube arrays (also termed as VACNTs or CNT forest) have recently found to be transformable to a reflective mirror from a naturally black absorber. The feature of improved reflectance can be attained by the controllable tip bending process using the bottom surface of a rotated cylindrical tool (the process called micro-mechanical bending (M2B)). In this paper, the polarized light reflectance of bent and compacted region of the CNT forest using M2B method has been investigated. We observed that reflectance from the processed CNT zone was highly dependent on the angle of incidence and polarization state of the incident laser. For the first time, the refractive index of the tip bent CNT forests by M2B method was investigated and found to be in a range of ∼1.8

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

Tablet use in schools: A critical review of the evidence for learning outcomes

The increased popularity of tablets in general has led to uptake in education. We critically review the literature reporting use of tablets by primary and secondary school children across the curriculum, with a particular emphasis on learning outcomes. The Systematic Review methodology was used and our literature search resulted in 33 relevant studies meeting the inclusion criteria. A total of 23 met the minimum quality criteria and were examined in detail (16 reporting positive learning outcomes, 5 no difference and 2 negative learning outcomes). Explanations underlying these observations were analysed, and factors contributing to successful uses of tablets are discussed. While we hypothesise how tablets can viably support children in completing a variety of learning tasks (across a range of contexts and academic subjects), the fragmented nature of the current knowledge base, and the scarcity of rigorous studies, make it difficult to draw firm conclusions. The generalisability of evidence is limited and detailed explanations as to how, or why, using tablets within certain activities can improve learning remain elusive. We recommend that future research moves beyond exploration towards systematic and in-depth investigations building on the existing findings documented here.We gratefully acknowledge a donation from ARM Holdings Ltd. that partially supported this literature review.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jcal.1212

Investigating the Effect of Using Mobile Touchscreen Device on Children's Tactile Skills

To users, mobile touchscreen devices have appealing characteristics; among these characteristics is intuitiveness, which leads to mobile devices being used almost everywhere by almost everyone to accomplish almost anything. This statement, to some degree, holds for children too. Despite touchscreen devices’ intuitiveness and popularity, we don’t know much about how interacting with such devices affects children. Given that mobile touchscreen devices are both engaging and interactive, one can speculate that such an effect may potentially have some benefits. In this research we test whether touchscreen use over time can contribute to improving children’s tactile skills or not. We also revisit “difficult gestures” to confirm children’s ability to execute such gestures