Tilde Bekker

The influence of the level of free-choice learning activities on the use of an educational computer game

Employing a mixed-method explorative approach, this study examined the in situ use of and opinions about an educational computer game for learning English introduced in three schools offering different levels of freedom to choose school activities. The results indicated that the general behaviour of the children with the game was very different for each of the schools while there were no significant differences in subjective opinions or previous computer game experience as measured with a questionnaire. The gaming records and interviews informed that children do enjoy playing the game in comparison with other formal learning activities, but appreciate it less as a leisure-time activity. Furthermore it appears that children used to teacher-initiated activities tend to depend on their teachers directions for how and when to play. The study highlights the level of choice as one of the important aspects to consider when introducing a game in the classroom. The study also points out some suggestions for the design of educational games, such as providing communication possibilities between players and integrating fast-paced motor-skill based games with learning content in a meaningful way.

Leaving room for improvisation: towards a design approach for open-ended play

Open-ended play with interactive objects provides children with the freedom to construct their own rules, goals and meaning. Instead of games with strict rules, open-ended play designs offer interaction opportunities as a trigger for creating personalized games. The process of developing these designs differs from designs with predefined use. This paper presents the further development of a design approach on how to design for open-ended play. We give an overview of related work and analyze eight existing open-ended play designs. Next, interviews with design students are discussed that illustrate the process of developing open-ended play designs. As a conclusion, we describe our design approach for open-ended play, including an improved definition of open-ended play, an overview of which design parameters have to be considered and advice for tailoring a design process to consider these parameters.

Legitimate Participation in the Classroom Context: Adding Learning Goals to Participatory Design

In this paper we examine the challenges of introducing learning goals in Participatory Design (PD) activities in a school context. In order to increase the transparency of mutual learning in accordance with traditional PD values, we argue that learning through design approaches can inspire us to actively formulate learning goals, stage activities and include reflection as an integral part in the PD activity in order to meet those learning goals. We tested this approach in several master student projects, where the students were required to involve children in schools in the design of a technology. Our data analysis is based on their written reports as well as a specific exam question. We found that defining good learning goals was hard, but useful, especially when designing and discussing informed consent forms with teachers. Staging activities in order to meet the learning goals was possible, although learning goals were sometimes derived from the activities. Finally, incorporating moments of reflection for children was still difficult for our students because they felt pressed for time. We present some of the advantages and problems so that practitioners can consider the added value of this approach.

Design for social interaction through physical play in diverse contexts of use

Products can support user groups in social interaction and/or physical play in various ways. Depending on the requirements and needs of specific user groups and contexts of use, different approaches are applied to create successful designs. This special issue contains papers that describe designs for children, adults and elderly for sports, home and outdoor contexts. The papers in this issue explore how technology can contribute to enhancing user experiences in terms of social interaction and physical activities. Knowledge from very diverse research areas, such as, social psychology, persuasive technology, child development, human–robot interaction, and creativity is used as an inspiration source for the various projects.

A research framework for playful persuasion based on psychological needs and bodily interaction

This paper presents a research framework that relates interactive systems to behavioral change with psychological needs and bodily interaction as intermediating variables. The framework is being developed in a multidisciplinary research project that focuses on how to design intelligent play environments that promote physical and social activities. Here, the framework serves to generate design relevant research questions and to guide communication amongst group members.

Swinxsbee: A Shared Interactive Play Object to Stimulate Children’s Social Play Behaviour and Physical Exercise

This paper describes a study on the influence of personal and shared play objects on the amount of social interaction. The study makes use of Swinxs, a commercially available game console that uses the strength of digital games to facilitate physically active games that can be played indoor or outdoor. A Frisbee-like object called Swinxsbee has been designed to support new game possibilities for Swinxs and stimulate social interaction. The results of a user evaluation show that children playing with shared objects engage in more social interaction than children playing with personal objects. Furthermore we observed that when games require much physical activity, this might have a negative influence on the level of social interaction, while games demanding creativity might have a positive influence.

GlowSteps A Decentralized Interactive Play Environment for Open-Ended Play

In this paper we present the interactive play environment GlowSteps. GlowSteps consists of ten flexible tiles that respond with light feedback on players actions. The play environment is developed to support both social and physical play and is designed with the intention to encourage children to create their own play and games. The tiles can be programmed with different interaction behaviors leading to a variety of play experiences. This showcase illustrates our design approach for such interactive play environments, combining the fields of decentralized systems and open-ended play.

Designing Kinect games to train motor skills for mixed ability players

Children who have special needs when it comes to motor skill development, for instance as a result of developmental coordination disorder or cerebral palsy, need to undergo long bouts of physical therapy. This can often be considered boring, to the detriment of the efficacy of the therapy. One way to improve the engagement of physical therapy is to embed it into a video game, e.g. with the aid of Kinect. However, very little is known scientifically on how to design these serious games for mixed abilities in order to be both fun and efficacious in terms of motor skills development or attitude change. In addition, contemporary entertainment games often revolve around competition based on mastery of skills to be engaging, something special needs children feel left out in. In this position paper we survey the field and propose a number of ways to approach mixed ability game design.

Interactive Play Objects: The Influence of Multimodal Output on Open-Ended Play

In this paper we investigate how providing multiple output modalities affects open-ended play with interactive toys. We designed a play object which reacts to children’s physical behavior by providing multimodal output and we compared it with a unimodal variant, focusing on the experience and creativity of the children. In open-ended play children create their own games inspired by the interaction with a play object. We show how the modalities affect the number of games played, the type and diversity of games that the children created, and the way children used the different feedback modalities as inspiration for their games. Furthermore, we discuss the consequences of our design choices on open-ended play.

Being Explicit about Underlying Values, Assumptions and Views when Designing for Children in the IDC Community

When designing technologies for children, designers and researchers often implicitly or explicitly incorporate an interpretation of what a child is, how children learn, or how they play etc. in their design process. However, if these assumptions are not communicated explicitly, discussions among researchers and designers can become difficult because they are not based on the same premises. It is important for the IDC community to be explicit about what assumptions are being made about children and how technology can support their life, so we can develop better quality argumentations about our work.