CHI 2009 Workshop: Tangibles for Children

Introduction - Call for journal papers - Organizers - Workshop program & participants

CHI workshop program and participants

The one-day workshop aims to obtain a good picture of what benefits we expect tangibility to provide (including novel and future applications), gather current empirical evidence to support the assumed benefits of tangibility and discuss appropriate evaluation methodologies for tangibles and children. At the end of the workshop, the participants launch provocative statements with regard to the research field on tangibles and children.

After the workshop, we organize a special issue on this workshop's topic in the journal Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, published by Springer London.

Date

April 4th, 2009, @ CHI 2009 conference

Workshop Schedule and Participants

    8 am

    Conference center and registration open

     

    9 – 9:40

    Introduction to the workshop topic, presentation of the T-CuBe concept

    Presenters: workshop organizers

    9:40-9:50

    “Augmented-reality scratch: a tangible programming environment for children”

    Presenter: Iulian Radu
    Moderator discussion: Franca Garzotto

    9:50-10 am

    “Towards Large Scale Adoption of Tangibles for Children”

    Presenter: Franca Garzotto
    Moderator discussion: Alissa Antle

    10 am-10:10

    “Evaluating the effect of the tangibility of game elements on physical activity and social interaction in Head Up Games”

    Presenter: Iris Soute
    Moderator discussion: Cristina Sylla

    10:10-10:20

    “The Effect of Physical Representations on Problem Space”

    Presenter: Andrew Manches
    Moderator discussion: Iris Soute

    10:30-11 am

    Coffee break

    Coffea, tea, pastries or bagels

    11 am-11:10

    “Virtually Brushing my tooth”

    Presenter: Cristina Sylla
    Moderator discussion: Michael Horn

    11:10-11:20

    “Integral skill development with the TagTiles console”

    Presenter: Janneke Verhaegh
    Moderator discussion: Andrew Manches

    11:20-11:30

    “Exploring Playful and Affective Remote Communication Objects for Hospitalized Children”

    Presenter: Astrid Lubsen
    Moderator discussion: Janneke Verhaegh

    11:30-11:40

    “Extending concepts of engagement in tangible environments”

    Presenter: Taciana Pontual Falcao
    Moderator discussion: Janet Read

    11:40-11:50

    T-CuBe break

    Surprise activity

    11:50-12 am

    “Mood modules”: Interconnected Wireless Toy Units for Studies of Social Play through Musical and Sonic Games"

    Presenter: Anne Marie Hansen
    Moderator discussion: Taciana Pontual Falcao

    12 am- 12:10

    “Tangible programming in education”

    Presenter: Michael Horn
    Moderator discussion: Iulian Radu

    12:10-12:20

    “Warp Speed Design of Tangible Games with Children”

    Presenter: Janet Read
    Moderator discussion: Astrid Lubsen

    12:20-12:30

    “Analyzing Children’s Hand Actions using Tangible User Interfaces”

    Presenter: Alissa Antle
    Moderator discussion: Anne Marie Hansen

    12:30-2pm

    Lunch

     

    2pm-3:30pm

    Workshop activity

    The group will break up into 3 smaller groups. Each group will work on one axis of the T-CuBe: methods – innovations - benefits

    3:30-4pm

    Coffee break

    Coffee, tea, sodas, juices, bags of chips or pretzels

    4pm-5pm

    Final workshop activity

    Every subgroup will summarize their discussion. The T-CuBe will be adapted. A poster will be created. Each participant formulates a provocative statement.

    Provocative statements launched at the end of the workshop

    • "Children are not designers"
    • "We should involve children more in finding problems and solutions"
    • "Tangibles are not to replace TUIs but to bring different kinds of interaction"
    • "We need involvement of domain experts to create effective tangibles"
    • "A tangible framework = physical skeleton + flexible programmable content and interaction"
    • "We need a new definition, a tangible one we can get our hands onto"
    • "‘Tangibles’ is a really bad word"
    • "Let’s have a Hui (headable), Grui (graspable) or a Kui (kickable) user interface"
    • "Tangibles bring more disadvantages than advantages"
    • "Tangibles for kids are obsolete, children are born as native in the virtual world"
    • "Not better methods, better questions"
    • "Move beyond frameworks, towards theory"
    • "We need to move deeper, beyond fun, engagement, enjoyable, to understand real benefits of TUIs"
    • "We do not need evaluations"
    • "TUIs: no special methods are needed"
    • "You can’t evaluate tangibles without agreeing what you value"
    • "What if we were…to share tangible interfaces across research labs in order to investigate their full potentials instead of always investing new ones?"
    • "Research in tangibles is not generalizable, since the context is so much tied into the use of tangibles and the context can be different every time"
    • "Child centered design is often bad design"

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