Classroom collaboration in the design of tangible interfaces for storytelling

Reviewer: Lou Lucke

This magic carpet doesn’t fly, but it looks like it was a lot of fun for the five to seven year old children that used it to assist in telling the stories their groups had created. Educators from the University of Nottingham, UK adopted, used and extended the KidPad program from the University of Maryland. They wanted something better than multiple mice and/or standard keyboards so they built their “magic carpet", a large throw rug sized pressure pad with the pressure points close to the edges to allow a different kind of interface. Although the educators admit to the limitations of their carpet and the need to continue to use traditional interfaces to KidPad, they apparently did not feel it appropriate to add sensors for more than page turning, zooming and horizontal motion. Instead they utilized video tracked arm movement for vertical motion and barcodes for identifying pictures the children created for their stories. Their system did track and react to the speed at which the children jumped on the pressure pads. The educators indicated their intent to interface with the traditional storytelling materials such as crayons, paper, cardboard, and so on, but they apparently had not yet gotten that far, at least at the time of this CHI 2001 conference. Presumably, CHI stands for computer human interface, yet the authors use the acronym HCI (without expanding it). This is an interesting paper. It is well organized, well illustrated, and free of typographical errors. It has a reference list of 23 items. Educators interested in unique methods of computer/student interaction, particularly at the elementary grades level, should enjoy reading this contribution to the educational training field. Online Computing Reviews Service