Serious interface design for dental health: Wiimote-based tangible interaction for school children

This paper describes a camera-based approach towards creating a tangible interface for serious games. We introduce our game for dental health targeted at school children which implements the Nintendo WiiMote as infrared camera. Paired with a gesture-recognition system, this combination allows us to apply real-world items as input devices. Thereby, the game tries to address different aspects of dental hygiene along with the improvement of children's motor skills. In our focus group test, we found that tangible interfaces offer great potential for educational purposes and can be used to engage kids in a playful learning process by addressing their childlike curiosity and fostering implicit learning

Too Cool at School - Understanding Cool Teenagers

Cool can be thought about on three levels; the having of cool things, the doing of cool stuff and the being of cool. Whilst there is some understanding of cool products, the concept, of being cool is much more elusive to designers and developers of systems. This study examines this space by using a set of pre-prepared teenage personas as probes with a set of teenagers with the aim of better understanding what is, and isn’t cool about teenage behaviours. The study confirmed that teenagers are able to rank personas in order of cool and that the process of using personas can provide valuable insights around the phenomenon of cool. The findings confirm that cool is indeed about having cool things but in terms of behaviours cool can be a little bit, but not too, naughty

A Joker in the class: Teenage readers attitudes and preferences to reading on different devices

A comparison of 10th graders' reading of a narrative, literary text on a Sony e-reader and in print showed that preferences for reading devices are related to gender and to general reading habits. One hundred forty-three students participated in the study. In a school setting, students were asked to begin reading a novel on one device and then continue reading the same novel on the other device. A survey was administered before and after the reading session, measuring reading habits in general, device preferences, and experiences with screen and paper reading. Results showed that, overall, most students preferred reading on the e-reader. This preference was particularly strong among boys and reluctant readers, whereas avid readers were more in favor of print. Implications of these findings to library policies and priorities are discussed

Working Ethically in Participatory Research with Children

In this paper we present the ABCD framework for working ethically with children and young people in participatory design studies. This framework covers A – Agreement and consent made between all participants and interested parties; B – Behaviour of the research team towards the activities, requiring them to examine their motivations and to be honest in their interactions with children; C – Classroom experience in participatory sessions during which children are encouraged to discuss the nature of their participation, and D – Dissemination of the work and planning appropriate follow on activities to ensure that children are informed about the outputs from their contributions. We discuss the process by which we developed the framework, the challenges raised by working in this way with children and the role of values in participatory research

Emerging technologies for learning (volume 1)

Collection of 5 articles on emerging technologies and trend

Integrating Digital App Technologies within Traditional Expressive Arts Therapy for Children and Adolescents

In recent years, technology in the form of digital applications (apps) has emerged as a fundamental aspect of everyday life as well as a practical, convenient, and inexpensive tool for artistic self-expression, most notably amongst children and adolescents. Ninety-eight percent of U.S. households currently possess some form of mobile device (Rideout, 2017), with an estimated 95% of U.S. teenagers ages 13 to 17 owning a Smartphone (Anderson & Jiang, 2018). As digital natives, children and adolescents are more likely to identify with and connect to these arts-based methods. Clinician perspective concerning digital integration varies across a wide spectrum. Through a critical review of the existing literature, this research investigated the current state of digital app technology within the field of Expressive Arts Therapies, as well as potential benefits and drawbacks to the integration of this artistic media. Expressive Arts Therapy is predicated on the multimodal nature of artistic forms. Modality-specific apps within art, music, and dance therapy disciplines have garnered encouraging findings; however, no authentic multimodal digital app currently exists. This research explored the intermodal possibilities of both singular modality apps as well as those quantitatively examined in other mental-health related fields. Additionally, recommendations and considerations are made surrounding future research and app development within an Expressive Arts Therapies framework

Arousing elements in children’s digital interactive storybook

This paper reports an ongoing study on making children’s digital storybook arousing.The problem being addressed in this paper is the lack of proper elements for guiding designers to incorporate into children’s digital storybook. Without the proper elements, designers tend to design digital storybook based on their preferences, instead of those usable to the children.This may lead to discouraging state when children interact with the digital storybook. To address that, this paper aims at determining the most common interface components for digital interactive storybook that make children feel aroused when interacting with. In accomplishing that, a series of field study was carried out, involving a sample of interactive digital storybook.Data were collected from 13 children aged seven to nine through observation and interview.In the end, a set of most common elements that make children aroused when interacting with interactive digital storybook were gathered

Wearable Computing for Health and Fitness: Exploring the Relationship between Data and Human Behaviour

Health and fitness wearable technology has recently advanced, making it easier for an individual to monitor their behaviours. Previously self generated data interacts with the user to motivate positive behaviour change, but issues arise when relating this to long term mention of wearable devices. Previous studies within this area are discussed. We also consider a new approach where data is used to support instead of motivate, through monitoring and logging to encourage reflection. Based on issues highlighted, we then make recommendations on the direction in which future work could be most beneficial