In this work we aim to make use of methods to read cooperatively between different age groups. Concepts for cooperative learning between preschool and elementary school children are presented, where preschool children can train their text comprehension skills solving short puzzles while elementary school children train their reading skills by recording parts of an interactive story.
We showcase a distributed toolkit of various sensors and output modules, each with wireless capability, that can independently or in concert work together. This is enabled by a programming environment with a real-time interpreter that can connect and update the state of the modules on-the-fly.
A key aspect of children’s development is the ability to manage personal feelings, understand others’ feelings and needs, and interact positively with others. To facilitate and complement this process, we developed an interactive storytelling prototype to help children and parents explore emotional situations. Specifically, the tangible modular toolkit, enables the re-creation of different narratives using a multimodal user interface.
Grandparents and grandchildren that live apart often rely on communication technologies, such as messengers, video conferencing, and phone calls for maintaining relationships. To facilitate communication, we developed StoryBox, a tangible device that allows sharing photos, tangible artifacts, and audio recordings of everyday life.
Computer-mediated communication technology is ubiquitous in todays society. However, the design of these technologies often takes a screen-based approach and requires users to adopt new usage conventions. While these methods have been widely successful in helping individuals communicate, we take a step back in this paper and explore the design implications of a simpler tangible system for keeping in touch.
Social Interaction and the feeling of emotional closeness to beloved ones is mainly driven by the communication with each other. To continue the participation in each others lives, we have developed a concept to share daily activities, current moods and presence information using a smart livingroom table.