Willem Fontijn

TagTiles: optimal challenge in educational electronics

In this paper we describe TagTiles, a tangible electronic board game for educational purposes. It was designed to be suitable for investigating the balance between challenge and control by providing fine-grained and wide ranged difficulty levels. TagTiles can address a range of skills including fine motor skills, cognitive and social skills. Evaluation of the game showed that the children appreciated the game and that most of them were offered a challenge that was appropriate for their skill level.

Functional Fun with Tangible User Interfaces

This paper describes how fun can be used to maximize the learning potential of smart toys using tangible interfaces. Based on the purpose of fun, three orthogonal core sources of fun, accomplishment, discovery and bonding, are presented and linked to child development. This link is illustrated with two examples of tangible electronic games.

ESPranto SDK: an adaptive programming environment for tangible applications

This paper describes the ESPranto Software Development Kit, which supports the development of sensor/actuator based applications, most notably educational toys and games. It enables non-technical users, such as parents, teachers, game developers and psychologists, to specify applications by themselves. The SDK allows them to start off quickly with developing simple applications. Then, as their programming skills increase with experience, the SDK supports them to create more complex applications. This is achieved by offering a complete tool chain with one, consistent programming paradigm. Each link is a separate tool offering a tailored amount of flexibility and complexity. To ensure that users can understand the feedback the SDK provides them, it is given in terms of the tool currently used. Furthermore, by preventing runtime errors, a user can be sure a program will work correctly if it compiles. We validated the ESPranto SDK partially by tests, but mainly by monitoring users applying the SDK. In practice the ESPranto SDK indeed proved to meet its design goals for all of its intended users.

On the Benefits of Tangible Interfaces for Educational Games

Educational games become more effective when the challenge they offer matches the developing abilities of the player continuously. This promotes the motivation of the player and ensures favorable conditions for learning. To achieve a proper match between the players abilities and the challenge offered, it is important to minimize any unintended challenge caused by the user interface.We studied the ease-of-use of a tangible interface for an educational game and of a personal computer based version of the same game. Tangibility of the interface was expected to make the game easier to learn and easier to use than the PC version because it is more direct.The results from our experiment, in which the interactions of children with the physical interface and the screen-based interface were compared, support this. The results suggest that the tangible version of the game is easier to use than the screen-based version and that it causes less unintended load for the children.

In-game assessment and training of nonverbal cognitive skills using TagTiles

We present a field study with a game for children called ‘Tap the little hedgehog’, which is played on the TagTiles console, a tangible electronic interface. The game was developed to train and assess cognitive skills and includes tasks which, in isolation, exhibit a high correlation with a number of subtests from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-III-NL). The tasks address a range of nonverbal skills by requiring children to perform different operations on abstract patterns such as copying, reproducing sequences from memory and mirroring patterns. In the current study, we tested whether these tasks kept their ability to address these skills if included in a gaming context, whether children are able to play the game independently and whether they are motivated to play the game. The results of the study support the hypothesis that nonverbal IQ-scores, as measured by the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, can improve by training with a game. Hence, games like ‘Tap the little hedgehog’ can be used to train specific skills and serve as a screening tool for these skills. The results also confirm that children can play the game independently and that they enjoy it. We further found that children quickly learn how to play the game and use the interface.

On the correlation between children's performances on electronic board tasks and nonverbal intelligence test measures

In this study it was investigated whether a tangible electronic console (TagTiles) can be used in principle to address a range of cognitive skills by examining the underlying basic psychometric properties of TagTiles tasks. This is a precursor to an intervention study on the impact of TagTiles on cognitive development or an instrument development study. The tasks implemented on the console consisted of abstract visual patterns, which were intended to target perception, spatial knowledge representation, eye-hand coordination, reasoning and problem solving. The results of a pilot study (N = 10, children aged 8-10) and an experiment (N = 32, children aged 8-10) are presented. Correlations between scores on TagTiles tasks on the one hand and a selection of WISC-III^N^L performance subtests, Ravens progressive matrices and RAKITs Memory Span on the other hand, were calculated. The results indicate that the TagTiles tasks cover similar skills as the applied WISC-III^N^L subtests, demonstrated by the moderate to large correlations between performance scores on sets of TagTiles tasks and sets of WISC-III^N^L tasks. The combined TagTiles task scores were also significantly correlated with the aggregated WISC-III^N^L subtest scores. Significant correlations were found between the TagTiles tasks and the Raven test scores, though for the RAKIT Memory Span no significant correlation with TagTiles tasks was found. After further refinement and validation, in particular with a larger sample size, the tasks can be applied to provide an indication of childrens skill levels, offering the benefits of a self motivating testing method to children, and avoiding inconsistencies in administration. As such, the tasks may become an effective tool for the training and assessment of nonverbal skills for children.

A development support bubble for children

In this paper we describe an opportunity that Ambient Intelligence provides outside the domains typically associated with it. We present a concept for enhancing child development by introducing tangible computing in a way that fits the children and improves current education. We argue that the interfaces used should be simple and make sense to the children. The computer should be hidden and interaction should take place through familiar play objects to which the children already have a connection. Contrary to a straightforward application of personal computers, our solution addresses cognitive, social and fine motor skills in an integrated manner. We illustrate our vision with a concrete example of an application that supports the inevitable transition from free play throughout the classroom to focused play at the desk. We also present the validation of the concept with children, parents and teachers, highlighting that they all recognize the benefits of tangible computing in this domain.

A framework for ambient applications

Applications are designed traditionally in a top-down manner, starting with explicit user requirements and requiring explicit user interaction to control them. Sensor networks provide a way for the autonomous acquisition of context information, which can be used to control applications without explicit user interaction. In addition, they can be used for context exploration. This enables a semi-automatic generation of new functionality. In this paper we introduce a framework for Ambient Applications (AmbientApps). AmbientApps are applications that can react to the context information with implicit user interaction. Besides providing the context information to AmbientApps, the framework is also characterized by its ability to detect new patterns in sensor data and link them to user actions on devices and pre-empting that user action the next time the same pattern is detected.

Creating a Development Support Bubble for Children

In this paper we describe an opportunity Ambient Intelligence provides outside the domains typically associated with it. We present a concept for enhancing child development by introducing tangible computing in a way that fits the children and improves current education. We argue that the interfaces used should be simple and make sense to the children. The computer should be hidden and interaction should take place through familiar play objects to which the children already have a connection. Contrary to a straightforward application of personal computers, our solution addresses cognitive, social and fine motor skills in an integrated manner. We illustrate our vision with a concrete example of an application that supports the inevitable transition from free play throughout the classroom to focused play at the table. We also present the validation of the concept with children, parents and teachers, highlighting that they all recognize the benefits of tangible computing in this domain.