Emily S. Cramer

Design Rationale: Opportunities and Recommendations for Tangible Reading Systems for Children

Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) have been suggested to have the potential to support learning for children. Despite the increasing number of TUI reading systems there are few design guidelines for children, especially for those with dyslexia (a specific difficulty in language acquisition skills). In this paper we discuss four design opportunities and five design recommendations for designing tangible reading systems for children, particularly those with dyslexia. We ground our analysis using theories of the causes and interventions for dyslexia, best multisensory training practices and existing research on TUIs that support learning to read for children. We describe our tangible reading system, called PhonoBlocks, focusing on two core design features which take advantage of these opportunities. We also describe how we iteratively fine-tuned the details of our design based on our recommendations, an expert review and feedback from tutors who work with children with dyslexia every day. We include a discussion of design trade-offs in our process. This design rationale paper contributes to the growing research on designing tangible spelling and reading systems for children.

Why Tangibility Matters: A Design Case Study of At-Risk Children Learning to Read and Spell

Tangibles may be effective for reading applications. Letters can be represented as 3D physical objects. Words are spatially organized collections of letters. We explore how tangibility impacts reading and spelling acquisition for young Anglophone children who have dyslexia. We describe our theory-based design rationale and present a mixed-methods case study of eight children using our PhonoBlocks system. All children made significant gains in reading and spelling on trained and untrained (new) words, and could apply all spelling rules a month later. We discuss the design features of our system that contributed to effective learning processes, resulting in successful learning outcomes: dynamic colour cues embedded in 3D letters, which can draw attention to how letter(s) position changes their sounds; and the form of 3D tangible letters, which can enforce correct letter orientation and enable epistemic strategies in letter organization that simplify spelling tasks. We conclude with design guidelines for tangible reading systems.

Button Matrix: How Tangible Interfaces can Structure Physical Experiences for Learning

Physical experiences are frequently used to represent mathematics to children. However, students sometimes fail to transfer performance to symbolic representations of problems. In this paper, we suggest that tangible interfaces can promote transfer by structuring physical experiences. We realize our concept in a system, Button Matrix, that uses coupled tactile, vibration and visual feedback to a) highlight features of a physical experience that represents arithmetic concepts and b) cue reflection on the links between the physical experience and mathematical symbols.

PhonoBlocks: A Tangible System for Supporting Dyslexic Children Learning to Read

Dyslexia is defined as severe difficulty learning to read. It affects about 10% of the population in English speaking countries. Severe difficulty learning to read is correlated with tremendous emotional, social and economic costs. In this paper, we describe PhonoBlocks, a tangible user interface to a reading system that uses dynamic colour cues embedded in 3D tangible letters to provide additional decoding information and modalities. PhonoBlocks was developed to support children, aged 5-8 years old, who are having difficulty learning to decode English letter-sound pairs. We present the theoretical foundations as rationale for our core design strategies and decisions. We discuss the assumptions in our design rationale and describe how we will validate our system working with a school for dyslexic children.

Designing Tangibles for Children: One Day Hands-on Workshop

This hands-on workshop introduces a foundation for designing tangibles for children. Participants engage in a low-fidelity design challenge using the iPad Osmo system. We focus on how designing tangibles for children is unique from other design problems and processes. We walk participants through an outcome driven design process using the award winning Developmentally Situated Design (DSD) card set -- focusing on cognitive, emotional, physical, and social skills specific to children at different ages. Small groups create solutions for the same design challenge, but focus on the skills and abilities of a specific age group. We facilitate a compare and contrast exercise of their solutions to help synthesize the complexities of, and showcase skills for, designing child-centric tangibles. While not necessary for participation, we encourage participants who have them to bring iPads (v2 or higher) or iPad minis. Participants are also encouraged to review the DSD II cards in advance, available at http://www.antle.iat.sfu.ca/DSD.

Cultural Differences in Visual Search for Geometric Figures

While some studies suggest cultural differences in visual processing, others do not, possibly because the complexity of their tasks draws upon high-level factors that could obscure such effects. To control for this, we examined cultural differences in visual search for geometric figures, a relatively simple task for which the underlying mechanisms are reasonably well known. We replicated earlier results showing that North Americans had a reliable search asymmetry for line length: Search for long among short lines was faster than vice versa. In contrast, Japanese participants showed no asymmetry. This difference did not appear to be affected by stimulus density. Other kinds of stimuli resulted in other patterns of asymmetry differences, suggesting that these are not due to factors such as analytic/holistic processing but are based instead on the target-detection process. In particular, our results indicate that at least some cultural differences reflect different ways of processing early-level features, possibly in response to environmental factors.

Assessing the usability of smartwatches for academic cheating during exams

Smartwatches are growing in usage, yet they come with the additional challenge of regulating their usage during the taking of academic tests. However, it is unclear how effective they are at actually allowing students to cheat. We conducted an experiment that examines the use of smartwatches for cheating on Multiple-Choice Questions (MCQ) and Short Answers (SA) with either Pictures/Text shown on the watch to aid students. Our results indicate that smartwatches are neither efficient nor have a high usability rating for cheating. However, students are able to score higher on Multiple-Choice Questions compared to Short Answers. We use the cheating paradigm as an example to understand the perceived usability and appropriation of smartwatches in an academic setting. We provide suggestions that help to deter cheating in an academic setting. Our study contributes to the research on academic integrity and the growing demand of wearable technologies.

Exploring the Design Space of Tangible Systems Supported for Early Reading Acquisition in Children with Dyslexia

Tangible user interfaces have the potential to support children in learning to read. This research explores the design space of school-based tangible learning systems that support early reading acquisition in children, particularly in children with reading difficulties. Informed by theories of the causes and interventions for dyslexia and research on TUIs for learning, we present the design of a tangible reading system that uses the dynamic colour and tactile cues to help children with dyslexia to learn English letter-sound correspondences. We then propose a case study design that investigates how this system can support children with dyslexia aged 7-8 years old in learning letter-sound correspondences in a school context. We conclude by discussing the future work and potential contributions of this research.

Colouring the path from instruction to practice: perspectives on software for struggling readers

Mainstream paper and pencil interventions for Anglophone students with dyslexia emphasize a strategy of analyzing syllables to compensate for irregularities in English letter-sound correspondences. Classroom interventions have developed effective scaffolds for supporting students in analyzing syllables in instructional contexts. However, students typically fail to transfer knowledge to practice contexts (i.e, reading without a tutor). Software has proven to be an effective medium for helping dyslexic students practice basic literacy skills (phoneme awareness and letter knowledge). However, at present, there are no systems specifically designed to support dyslexic students in practicing syllable analysis. Correspondingly, there is a lack of information about which design features would best support dyslexic students in transferring syllable analysis skills from instructional (classroom) to practice (software) contexts. In an attempt to address this gap, we propose two guidelines for software supports of syllable-analysis in dyslexia: 1. Design software that serves as a dual medium for instruction and practice 2. Design scaffolds that serve as dual catalysts for learning and transfer. We realize our guidelines in a prototype software system for syllable analysis that uses colour-coding to direct attention to information during learning and to retrieve learned information during practice.