Andreia Couto presented the conceptualisation of our concept: Converged Playful Learning. This occurred at the II International Conference on Child Studies. The conference was held at the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain). The concept of Converged Playful Learning arose from observations conducted in Filipa Andrade’s classroom. These observations were with children aged 3 to 5. This concept combines technology and pedagogical experiences, promoting meaningful learning through play and interaction.
Thanks to Andreia for her excellent presentation. We appreciate all the participants for sharing and reflecting, which enriched our approach!
A Andreia Couto apresentou a conceptualização do nosso conceito: Converged Playful Learning, no II International Conference on Child Studies, realizado na Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (Espanha). O conceito: Converged Playful Learning resultou das observações realizadas na sala da Educadora Filipa Andrade com crianças de 3 a 5 anos. Este conceito une tecnologia e experiências pedagógicas, promovendo aprendizagens significativas através do brincar e da interação.
Obrigada Andreia Couto pela excelente apresentação e a todos os participantes pelas partilhas e reflexões que enriqueceram a nossa abordagem!
Cristina Sylla, Elena Márquez Segura, Akeiylah DeWitt, Ahmed Sabbir Arif, Eva Irene Brooks
In user studies with children, it is important to use age appropriate evaluation tools to better understand their preferences, opinions, and thoughts. Here, we studied two accepted evaluation tools: The Five Degrees of Happiness, and the Sticky Ladder rating scales; together with the Paper Ladder, a paper version of the latter. Thirty-six preschoolers rated two creative and play activities (painting and construction blocks) and a game (the musical chairs) in terms of difficulty, enjoyment, and preference. Drawing from theories of embodied and distributed cognition, we performed a video analysis of the children’s interactions with these tools, focusing on how each tool supported the children’s cognitive processes and communication with the researcher. Here, we first describe children’s embodied behavior and discuss how these were supported by design features and affordances of the tools. Then, we discuss strengths and shortcomings of each evaluation method. Last, we provide recommendations for their design, appropriation, and usage by researchers developing and evaluating playful solutions and games for children.
– Print a ladder that fits on an A4 paper with wider rungs. This will allow placing tokens together on the same rung;
– Glue the A4 paper with the printed ladder onto a cardboard. It will allow holding the ladder vertically to evoke associations to real live ladders, explaining and understanding the rating method;
– Draw the floor below the ladder, to also strengthen real-world ladder associations.
– Glue the paper pieces with the printed activities onto cardboard cutouts, which are easier to handle, more like objects, more robust, and durable than paper pieces.
Sticky Ladder
– Create rungs that are “velcroable” in their entirety (and not just the center) and long enough to allow several tokens on the same rung.
– Avoid gluing the Velcro onto the cloth as this will not be sturdy enough to endure several placing/removing of the items under evaluation.
Five Degrees of Happiness Rating Scale
– Visualize the activity being rated either through a drawing next to the questionnaire scale, or using tokens (e.g. placing them next to the questionnaire);
– For sustainability reasons, use a tablet to capture answers. Alternatively, a re-usable notebook sized whiteboard.
Cristina Sylla, Elena Márquez Segura, Akeiylah DeWitt, Ahmed Sabbir Arif, Eva Irene Brooks. 2019. Fiddling, Pointing, Hovering, and Sliding: Embodied Actions with Three Evaluation Tools for Children. In Proceedings of the 2018 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY ’19). ACM, New York, NY, USA,
Two members of the Mobeybou team had the chance to participate in Confia 2019, the International Conference in Illustration and Animation, that took place in Viana do Castelo, between June 14th and 16th. You can read our publications in Confia’s proceedings: confia.ipca.pt
Gabriela Sá presenting Visual Development Processes for a Multicultural Storytelling Tool.
Panel where Ana Paula Caruso presented Animating for a Digital Manipulative: how to create restricted action libraries without restricting the players’ creativity.
