Interactive Technology from CHI 2012 Supporting Literacy, Storytelling, and Narrative

I spent the last several days at CHI 2012 and was so immersed in the experience, I held off blogging until I arrived home.  


I was pleasantly overwhelmed by the experience at CHI 2012, There was so much to see, hear, and touch, there were so many bright, creative people all around - I was on mind/sensory overload.  Omar L. Gallaga, the author of Digital Savant (Austin 360), attended the conference, and the quote below from his recent post nicely sums it up:"When your mind gets blown multiple times in a very short period of time, it begins to feel as is your brain is quickly rewiring itself to accept that the reality is that anything is possible and that the continual, pleasurable surprise of discovery is the new norm."


For this post, I'm sharing a few things that were presented at CHI 2012 that focus on literacy, storytelling, and narrative.  I'll share more in future posts.


Creating and Using Interactive Narratives: Reading and Writing Branching Comics 
The short video below provides a good overview of the project, which was presented at CHI 2012 during the Out of the Box" session, chaired by Shahram Izadi, of Microsoft Research USA

"We employ comics and combine paper with a multi-touch interface to explore an approach to reading and writing interactive narratives."
Dan Andrews and Chris Baber from the University of Birmingham (UK) 
Sergei Efremov and Mikhail Komorov from the Moscow State Institute of Electronics and Mathematics (Russia).


If you are interested in learning more about this process, take a look at the references that were reviewed in the paper about this creative, thoughtful work.

Tap & Play: An End User Toolkit for Authoring Interactive Pen and Paper Language Activities 
The following video was created several months before CHI 2012:




Tap & Play:  An End User Toolkit for Authoring Interactive Pen and Paper Language Activities
Ann Marie Piper, Nadir Weibel, James Hollan, 


The following video is related to the Textual Tinkerability paper, presented during the Literacy on the Margin session, chaired by Juan Pablo Hourcade, at CHI 2012:
 


Textual Tinkerability:  Encouraging Storytelling Behaviors to Foster Emergent Literacy    Angela Chang, Cynthia Breazeal, Fardad Faridi, Tom Roberts, Glorianna Davenport, Henry Lieberman, Nick Montfort, Massachusetts Institute of Technology


Related: TinkRBook: Shared Reading Interfaces for Storytelling (IDC 2011)
TinkRBook

RELATED

CHI 2012:  brain expanding bits of brilliance
Omar L. Gallaga, Digital Savant, 5/11/12


FYI:  I was one of the organizers for the EIST (Educational Interfaces, Software & Technology) workshop, held on May 5th and 6th. The participants came from all around the world to spend two days of presenting, sharing, and brainstorming.  Everyone worked hard to make the workshop a success. (I'll share more about EIST soon, but if you are curious, the above link will provide you with more information about the program and papers that were presented.) 

Looking forward to CHI 2012: Child Computer Interaction, Educational Interfaces, Health, Special Needs, and Much More!

I am looking forward to attending the ACM-CHI 2012 conference!


On Saturday and Sunday I'll be at the Educational Interfaces, Software, and Technology (EIST) workshop, which is part of the Child Computer Interaction/HCI and Kids community.  I've selected a few papers/presentations/panels that I hope to attend during the remainder of the conference below.


If you are curious about other topics that will be presented at CHI 2012, take a look at the short video previews on the CHIMadness2012 YouTube channel.  

VocSyl


VocSyl: Designing Visualizations to Facilitate Multisyllabic Speech with Children with Autism and Speech Delay (pdf)
Joshua Hailpern, Andrew Harris, Reed LaBotz, Brianna Birman, Karrie Karahalios, Laura DeThorne, Jim Halle (Social Spaces Research Group, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign)

Social Scripts
 
Fatima Bourjarwah: Facilitating the Authoring of Multimedia Social Skills Instructional Modules for Adolescents with High-Functioning Autism

Autism and Maths Tutor
Research Showcase - Autism & Maths tutor - CHI 2012 from George Chan on Vimeo.

ShoeSense


Giles Bailly, Joerg Mueller, Michael Rohs, Daniel Wigdor, Sven Kratz
ShoeSense: A New Perspective on Hand Gestures and Wearable Applications


Escobedo, L., Nguyen, D.H., Boyd, L., Hirano, S.H., Rangel, A., Garcia, D., Tentori, M., & Hayes, G.R. (2012). MOSOCO: A Mobile Assistive Tool to Support Children with Autism Practicing Social Skills in Real-Life Situations. Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2012). Austin, Texas (May 5-10, 2012). New York: ACM Press. To appear

Design of an Exergaming Station for Children with Cerebral Palsy

(Research team from Queen's University, Canada, Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital)


Illumishare


Paper: IllumiShare: Sharing Any Surface

Sasa Junuzovic, Kori Inkpen, Tom Blank, Anoop Gupta, Microsoft Research

Panel: Tangible Interfaces for Children: Cognitive, Social & Physical Benefits and Challenges
Shuili Gilutz, Sandra Calvert, Kathleen Kremer, Barbara Chamberline, Geri Gay

Paper: Improving Literacy in Developing Countries Using Speech-Recognition-Supported Games on Mobile Devices 
Anuj Kumar, Pooja Reddy, Anuj Tewari, Rajat Agrawal, Matthew Kam


Tap & Play: And End-User Toolkit for Authoring Interactive Pen and Paper Language Activities (pdf) Ann Marie Piper, Nadir Weibel, James D. Hollan


RELATED
About the CHI Conference (from the CHI 2012 Conference Preview)
"Originally a small conference for psychologists interested in user interface design, the annual CHI conference has grown to include a very diverse participant group (such as interaction designers, computer scientists, engineering psychologists, developers, performing artists and more). It has also grown to deal with larger problems such as the organizational integration of technology and the use of technology in the home rather than only office settings. This year's conference marks 30 years of research, innovation and development in the field of Human-Computer Interaction and is expected to draw more than 2500 professionals from over 40 countries. The experience at CHI 2012 offers innovative opportunities for interacting with future technologies. The following areas represent a small portion of the total conference. For complete information about this year's conference, consult the Advance Program."


"Featuring over 900 works, the CHI conference is the premier worldwide forum for the exchange of information on all aspects of human-computer interaction. Typically the works presented address the concerns of design, engineering, management and user experience professionals. This year's conference also features works that focus on: Digital Arts, Games and Entertainment, Human-Computer Interaction for Kids, Health and Sustainability. Works are presented in several different venues. After two days of intimate pre-conference workshops, the main conference includes panel discussions, courses that provide leading-edge HCI knowledge, paper sessions, case studies, works-in-progress, student competitions (involving design, research and games), interactive demonstrations, special interest groups, and a Tuesday evening video night (popcorn included)." 



SIG-CHI is the Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction, and is part of ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery


Child Computer Interaction/HCI for Kids Chairs:
Janet C Read, University of Central Lancashire, UK
Panos Markopoulos, Eindhoven University of Technology
Allison Druin, University of Maryland


Educational Interfaces, Software, and Technology workshop organizers
CHI 2012 Facebook Page
EIST 2012 Facebook Page


SOMEWHAT RELATED 
The Autism Experience in Ubiquitous Computing (pdf)
Monica Tenority, Ph.D., UZBC, Ensenada, BC


Gillian Hayes:  Assistant Professor in Informatics, School of Information and Computer Sciences; Department of Education, University of California, Irvine.
Social and Technological Action Research (STAR), 

Interactive Technologies for Children with Special NeedsIDC 2012 
(11th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children)

As special themes, IDC 2012 would like to discuss children's needs under the perspectives of "pedagogical aspects in theory and practise" as well as "children from diverse cultural backgrounds".


Grawemeyer, B., Johnson, H., Brosnan, M., Ashwin, E., Benton, L. (2012) Developing an Embodied Pedagogical Agent With and For Young People with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Accepted for presentation at the 11th International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems, ITS 2012.

ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: May 5-10, Austin, Texas

I will be attending the upcoming  ACM CHI 2012  conference in Austin, Texas, and plan to share information, pictures, and video clips from the conference each day on this blog.  





I am on the organizing committee for the Education, Interfaces, Technology & Software workshop, which will be held on May 5th and 6th. My first two posts will be related to this workshop.  I'll have lots of exciting things to share!


During the conference, I plan to attend presentations that relate to information/data visualization,  use of technology for creative purposes, child-computer interaction, multimedia, and technology/interfaces that support people with special needs.