KINDERTIVITY: Using Interactive Surfaces to Foster Creativity in Pre-kindergarten Children

© Owner/Author 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/10.1145/10.1145/2829875.2829881Taking into account the existent educative and pedagogical techniques, which have proved its effectiveness to foster the innovation and creativity, this thesis poses to develop, experiment and evaluate a new technological framework based on interactive surfaces to be applied in the context of preschool education. The goal is to facilitate the three factors required for creative learning: knowledge, creative thinking and motivation but taking into account the cognitive and interaction limitations of these very young users.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). KINDERTIVITY: Using Interactive Surfaces to Foster Creativity in Pre-kindergarten Children. ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/2829875.2829881SBuxton, B. Multi-touch systems that I have known and loved. 2013. http://billbuxton.com/multitouchOverview.html.Catala, A., Jaen, J., van Dijk, B., and Jordà, S. Exploring tabletops as an effective tool to foster creativity traits. In Proc. of TEI'12, pp. 143--150.Comisión Europea. Conclusiones del Consejo de 12 de mayo de 2009 sobre un marco estratégico para la cooperación europea en el ámbito de la educación y la formación («ET 2020»). 2009.Common Sense Media. Zero to Eight: Childrens Media Use in America 2013. 2013.Cropley, A.J. Creativity in Education and Learning: A Guide for Teachers and Educators. Kogan Page, (2001).Damon, W., Lerner, R.M., Kuhn, D., and Siegler, R.S., eds. Handbook of Child Psychology, Volume 2, Cognition, Perception, and Language. Wiley, 2006.Fleck, R., Rogers, Y., Yuill, N., et al. Actions speak loudly with words. Proc. of ITS'09, pp. 189--196.Helmes, J., Cao, X., Lindley, S.E., and Sellen, A. Developing the story. Proc. of ITS'09, pp. 49--52.Hourcade, J.P. Interaction Design and Children. Foundations and Trends® in Human-Computer Interaction 1, 4 (2007), 277--392.Johnson, L., Adams, S., and Cummins, M. The NMC Horizon Report: 2012 K-12. The New Media Consortium, Austin, Texas, 2012.Khandelwal, M. and Mazalek, A. Teaching table: a tangible mentor for pre-k math education. Proc. of TEI'07, 191--194.Mansor, E.I., De Angeli, A., and De Bruijn, O. Little fingers on the tabletop: A usability evaluation in the kindergarten. Proc. of TABLETOP'08, 93--96.Nacher, V., Jaen, J., & Catala, A. (2014). 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.Nacher, V., Jaen, J., Catala, A., Navarro, E., and Gonzalez, P. Improving Pre-Kindergarten Touch Performance. Proc. of ITS '14, 163--166..Rick, J., Francois, P., Fields, B., Fleck, R., Yuill, N., and Carr, A. Lo-fi prototyping to design interactive-tabletop applications for children. Proc. of IDC'10, pp. 138--146.Rick, J. and Rogers, Y. From DigiQuilt to DigiTile: Adapting educational technology to a multi-touch table. Proc. of TABLETOP'08, pp. 73--80.Sluis, R.J.W., Weevers, I., van Schijndel, C.H.G.J., Kolos-Mazuryk, L., Fitrianie, S., and Martens, J.B.O.S. Read-It: Five-to-seven-year-old children learn to read in a tabletop environment. Proc. of IDC'04, pp. 73--80.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

Design Error Management: Interaction of People, Organization and the Project Environment in Construction

Design errors can have a negative impact on the cost, schedule and safety performance of construction projects. They can also have an adverse effect on an organisation’s profitability, as additional work requires resources and time to rectify the error that has occurred. The reduction (i.e. measures designed to limit the occurrence of failures) and containment (i.e. measures designed to increase the detection and accelerate the recovery of errors) of design errors can therefore ameliorate organisational and project performance as well as improve safety. A systemic framework that classifies design error reduction and containment strategies according to people, organisation and project is propagated. It is suggested that when people, organisational and project strategies are implemented, incongruence then the propensity for design error reductionwill significantly increase. The proposed framework can be used as a point for reference for implementing error management strategies to anticipate for ‘what might go wrong’ in construction projects

Learning from Post-project Reviews : A Cross-Case Analysis

Every new product development (NPD) project should not only deliver a successful new product but also should generate learning for the organization. Postproject reviews (PPRs) are recognized by both practitioners and academics as an appropriate mechanism to stimulate and capture learning in NPD teams. However, relatively few companies use PPRs, and those that do use them often fail to do so effectively. Although they are widely perceived to be a useful tool, empirical research on how PPRs are typically organized and the learning that results is limited. The present article addresses this gap in the extant knowledge and describes five in-depth case studies, which were conducted at leading companies in Germany. A detailed investigation was made of how PPRs are conducted and of the type of learning that can result. Three main sources of data were used for each case: company documentation, in-depth interviews with managers responsible for NPD, and observation of an actual PPR. The different data sources enabled extensive triangulation of data to be conducted and a high degree of reliability and validity to be achieved. The analysis enabled a number of key characteristics of the way PPRs are managed to be identified. Various characteristics of PPRs influence their utility, such as the time at which they take place and the way discussions are moderated. In addition, the data show that participants in the discussions at PPRs often use metaphors and stories, which indicates that PPRs have the potential to generate tacit knowledge. Interestingly, the data also show that there are various different ways in which metaphors and stories appear to stimulate discussions on NPD projects. Based on the cross-case analysis, a wide range of implications are identified. Researchers need to investigate PPRs further to identify how they can generate tacit and explicit knowledge and support project-to-project learning. The generation of tacit knowledge in NPD is a topic that particularly needs further investigation. The research also led to a range of recommendations for practitioners. Companies need to strongly communicate the purpose and value of PPRs, to run them effectively to stimulate the maximum possible learning, and to disseminate the findings widely. PPRs have the potential to create and transfer knowledge amongst NPD professionals, but, as they are seldom currently used, many companies are missing an important opportunity