Interdisciplinary Insights for Digital Touch Communication

Communication is increasingly moving beyond ‘ways of seeing’ to ‘ways of feeling’. This Open Access book provides social design insights and implications for HCI research and design exploring digitally mediated touch communication. It offers a socially orientated map to help navigate the complex social landscape of digitally mediated touch for communication: from everyday touch-screens, tangibles, wearables, haptics for virtual reality, to the tactile internet of skin. Drawing on literature reviews, new case-study vignettes, and exemplars of digital touch, the book examines the major social debates provoked by digital touch, and investigates social themes central to the communicative potential and societal consequences of digital touch: · Communication environments, capacities and practices · Norms associations and expectations · Presence, absence and connection · Social imaginaries of digital touch · Digital touch ethics and values The book concludes with a discussion of the significance of social understanding and methods in the context of Interdisciplinary collaborations to explore touch, towards the design of digital touch communication, ‘ways of feeling’, that are useable, appropriate, ethical and socially aware

The Making of Meaning through Dyadic Haptic Affective Touch

Despite the importance of touch in human-human relations, research in affective tactile practices is in its infancy, lacking in-depth understanding needed to inform the design of remote digital touch communication. This paper reports two qualitative studies that explore tactile affective communication in specific social contexts, and the bi-directional creation, sending and interpretation of digital touch messages using a purpose-built research tool, the Tactile Emoticon. The system comprises a pair of remotely connected mitts which enable users in different locations to communicate through tactile messages, by orchestrating duration and level of three haptic sensations: vibration, pressure and temperature. Qualitative analysis shows the nuanced ways in which 68 participants configured these elements to make meaning from touch messages they sent and received. It points to the affect and emotion of touch, its sensoriality and ambiguity, the significance of context, social norms and expectations of touch participants. Findings suggest key design considerations for digital touch communication, where the emphasis shifts from generating ‘recognizable touches’ to tools that allow people to shape their touches and establish common understanding about their meaning

A Review of Mobile Location-based Games for Learning across Physical and Virtual Spaces

In this paper we review mobile location-based games for learning. These games are played in physical space, but at the same time, they are supported by actions and events in an interconnected virtual space. Learning in these games is related to issues like the narrative structure, space and game rules and content that define the virtual game space. First, we introduce the theoretical and empirical considerations of mobile location based games, and then we discuss an analytical framework of their main characteristics through typical examples. In particular, we focus on their narrative structure, the interaction modes that they afford, their use of physical space as prop for action, the way this is linked to virtual space and the possible learning impact the game activities have. Finally we conclude with an outline of future trends and possibilities that these kinds of playful activities can have on learning, especially outside school, like in environmental studies and visits in museums and other sites of cultural and historical value

Game Kits: Metadesign considerations on game modding for learning

Today’s technologies that blur the distinction between users and designers have empowered end-users to engage with powerful learning activities like game modding. In this paper we discuss the characteristics of modding tools as expressive media that support teachers and students alike, to integrate in games their knowledge and ideas without being restricted by tools bound to the way the game is implemented; i.e. mainly through programming and STEM knowledge. We present work in progress on “Sus-X”, a GameKit that generates SimCity like games and provides pedagogically designed modding tools. We explore the expressive power of “Sus-X”, through two studies with students that engaged in modification of two different games created with “Sus-X”: one game involved urban sustainability and the other involved nutrition

Game Kits: Metadesign considerations on game modding for learning

Today's technologies that blur the distinction between users and designers have empowered end-users to engage with powerful learning activities like game modding. In this paper we discuss the characteristics of modding tools as expressive media that support teachers and students alike, to integrate in games their knowledge and ideas without being restricted by tools bound to the way the game is implemented; i.e. mainly through programming and STEM knowledge. We present work in progress on "Sus-X", a GameKit that generates SimCity like games and provides pedagogically designed modding tools. We explore the expressive power of "Sus-X", through two studies with students that engaged in modification of two different games created with "Sus-X": one game involved urban sustainability and the other involved nutrition

Towards Supporting ‘Learning To Learn Together ’ in the Metafora platform

Abstract. Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) has been demonstrated to improve student interaction in complex collaborative learning scenarios. When orchestrated appropriately, it also provides opportunities for learning high-level social learning skills, or “learning to learn together ” (L2L2), but these opportunities are often only dealt with implicitly. This paper presents work towards an intelligent system that can scaffold L2L2 across many domains by (a) offering carefully-designed message templates that encourage peers to communicate with their groups about their learning process, (b) analyzing student work and recommending a specific set of these message templates that are pertinent to their moment-by-moment interaction. We present methods by which the system can use automated analysis techniques to recognize opportunities where students might benefit from these messages, and either send the message directly or prioritize message templates for students ’ use

Discovering the invisible city: Location-based games for learning in smart cities

In this paper we discuss how location-based mobile games can be designed for learning in modern technology enhanced public spaces. We start with the description of the design process and we identify the main challenges faced. We elaborate the case of the game Invisible City: Rebels vs. Spies, a game to be played in a city centre using mobile devices. Through this case we highlight the adaptation of an original party game into a mobile form, the issues we faced and the key aspects conductive to learning in a smart city. It is claimed that creating mobile city games for learning is a new challenge, as our city landscapes are augmented with an increasing number of layers of digital information in which a new generation of city games are played