Appropriate Value-based ICTs in support of Frontline Peacekeepers

This paper reports a mixed methods study with frontline peacekeepers that aimed to explore values in relation to effective peacekeeping and ICTs. A quantitative study and field visit identified that even in peace keeping areas with poor infrastructure there is considerable access to the Internet with ICT in regular and frequent use. 86 civilian and military peacekeepers participated in 11 focus groups that discussed potential ICT improvements and innovations for peacekeeping at a United Nations base. Analysis identified 4 horizontal themes (User Experience, Integration, Connectivity and Privacy) across 3 use contexts (work performance, personal physical safety and well-being). Core values were being safe, maintaining relationships, doing work well and being cared for by their organisation. Recommendations highlight the urgent need to deploy existing apps on everyday ICTs rather than any real requirements for innovation or significant R&D spend

Design, Development and Evaluation of a Virtual Environment with children for Moral, Social & Emotional Leaning

Virtual environments have the potential to be an important teaching tool for emotionally-sensitive issues capable of producing a sense of presence, perspective-taking and introspection in users in a risk-free, rapid feedback experience. In designing such experiences, it is essential that users are regularly engaged in a collaborative design process. However, engaging in design, development and evaluation can in itself provide a learning experience. Here, we present our approach to engaging children in the design, development and evaluation of a virtual learning environment, specifically a Serious Game, focused on inculcating empathy, ethical reasoning and reflection for coping with bullying. We demonstrate that children’s involvement not only contributed to an improved virtual environment, but significantly, engaging in the design process provided children with a novel and effective learning opportunity. Through using innovative child-centered participatory design practices, this research provides perceptive insights into how engaging children in design can be employed as a learning experience for emotionally-sensitive learning as well as an approach to gathering user design input. The material outlined in this article is directly linked to virtual worlds for positive change— meeting the needs of children, empowering them to be consulted and take responsibility for issues that affect them at school

When will Immersive Virtual Reality have its day? Challenges to IVR adoption in the home as exposed in studies with teenagers, parents and experts

In response to the pandemic, many countries have had multiple lockdowns punctuated by partial freedoms limiting physically being together. In 2020-21, during the COVID-19 pandemic parents were stressed and exhausted by the challenges of work, home schooling and barriers to typical childcare arrangements. Children were missing one another, their social lives and the variety of experiences that the world beyond the home brings. Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) offers tried and tested ways to enable children to maintain beyond-household family activities and dynamics. However, it is not viewed as a solution. Instead, as demonstrated through a multiple method study involving a Rapid Evidence Assessment; workshops with 91 teenagers; interviews with 15 experts; a Delphi study with 21 experts; 402 parent questionnaires pre-pandemic; 232 parent questionnaires during the pandemic; and longitudinal interviews with 13 parents during the first UK lockdown in 2020, IVR is not viewed as having value in the home beyond gaming. Results highlight limited consideration of IVR as a way to enhance family life or the home, with a lack of evidence and direction from current research, innovation and policy. The paper empirically demonstrates that experts, teenagers and parents have limited expectations for VR. Further, with parental resistance to adoption and a lack of ideas or innovations in how Immersive Virtual Reality could be used, the likelihood of VR-headset adoption remains low as does its potential as a means of educating, entertaining and socially engaging children and teenagers

Co-design with Children: Using Participatory Design for Design Thinking and Social and Emotional Learning

This paper discusses leveraging design thinking techniques for involving children in serious game design in Japanese elementary schools. Our action research project approach accomplished two different goals: (1) to inculcate design thinking in pupils, and (2) to sensitize children on bullying victimization. Our approach uses a range of participatory design methods to distil design ideas from children and to support their design thinking aiming to boost children’s creative confidence and develop social and emotional skills. Key findings from our project are: (1) children made valuable design contributions including realistic bullying scenarios, language content, user interface design, storyline progression, character profiles, coping strategies etc., and (2) participatory design and design thinking stimulated ethical reasoning, reflection and empathy in children on bullying victimization. Our approach is unique in the current design thinking landscape, because it moves from designing “thing” (object) to designing “think” (bullying sensitization). Future research should focus on highlighting ways how participatory design and design thinking enrich and complement each other. The significance of our paper stems from the simple standpoint that those participating in a design should gain from participating in the design process. Takeaways for practitioners are: (1) building relationships with stakeholders, especially children, (2) empathy and user research techniques, (2) translating field data into usable insights, (3) idea-generation and rapid concept development, (4) product co-prototyping, (5) user engagement and co-creation, (6) multiple perspectives on effective communication

Shimpai Muyou: Confronting Child Suicides in Japan through a Serious Game & School-Based Intervention

School bullying is responsible for a large number of child suicides in Japan. Serious games have proved to be effective and highly motivational educational tools capable of increasing awareness, changing behavior, reduce risk factors and even improving protective skills. This paper presents a novel approach of using both participatory design and gameplay to sensitize children (aged 7-12 years old) on bullying victimization. Action research strategy is used with intentions to improve the quality of school life in Japan through the use of a serious game called Shimpai Muyou. What makes it stand out from the rest of the crowd is that the entire intervention was design, developed and evaluated through partnering with children in a school setting. The research is largely qualitative and exploratory in nature, stemmed from interdisciplinary core ideas related to technology, education, psychology and interactive theatre. Findings from both formative and summative evaluations indicated that child-users empathically engaged with the synthetic characters, attributing a range of emotions to their actions e.g., empathy, compassion, sadness, anger etc., tackling ethical dilemmas and bullying situations with confidence. From these results, we can conclude that Shimpai Muyou is a useful and engaging school-based anti-bullying intervention

Still looking for new ways to play and learn… Expert perspectives and expectations for interactive toys

The use of interactive, smart and connected toys is expected to increase rapidly with many claiming not only new ways to play, but also to have educational benefits. However, there is a lack of evidence to support such claims and the purpose of the current analysis was to gather expert opinion about interactive toys for play and learning. In-depth interviews with 15 experts from technology corporates, stakeholder organizations and academia using a semi-structured interview protocol were conducted. The audio transcripts were coded using a Template Analysis approach with the key themes being educational utility, learning, play, and children with disabilities. The text visualization revealed that experts perceived high educational effectiveness of interactive toys. Apart from the educational value, experts also spoke about the benefits of interactive toys in entertaining the children of busy parents, privacy, security and integrative features of smart toys. This study demonstrates that for experts’ interactive toys have higher perceived educational value than traditional toys or other forms of play although this is an intuition or an insight rather than based on direct evidence to support this view. From the analysis and interpretation, we identified three main recommendations (1) the need for interactive toys to provide a safe, secure and private way to play and learn; (2) increased research, experimentation and investigation to explore interactive toy claims and potential; and (3) increased interdisciplinary and intersectoral collaboration and innovation

Still looking for new ways to play and learn… Expert perspectives and expectations for interactive toys

The use of interactive, smart and connected toys is expected to increase rapidly with many claiming not only new ways to play, but also to have educational benefits. However, there is a lack of evidence to support such claims and the purpose of the current analysis was to gather expert opinion about interactive toys for play and learning. In-depth interviews with 15 experts from technology corporates, stakeholder organizations and academia using a semi-structured interview protocol were conducted. The audio transcripts were coded using a Template Analysis approach with the key themes being educational utility, learning, play, and children with disabilities. The text visualization revealed that experts perceived high educational effectiveness of interactive toys. Apart from the educational value, experts also spoke about the benefits of interactive toys in entertaining the children of busy parents, privacy, security and integrative features of smart toys. This study demonstrates that for experts’ interactive toys have higher perceived educational value than traditional toys or other forms of play although this is an intuition or an insight rather than based on direct evidence to support this view. From the analysis and interpretation, we identified three main recommendations (1) the need for interactive toys to provide a safe, secure and private way to play and learn; (2) increased research, experimentation and investigation to explore interactive toy claims and potential; and (3) increased interdisciplinary and intersectoral collaboration and innovation