In a world where we all feel so “connected”, the people that matter most have no method of remotely interacting with us.  My 1 1/2 year has no twitter, or Facebook account to update.  She doesn’t check into fourSquare every time we go to grandma’s house. Even with mobile phones and Skype video conferencing, there is no direct method of me interacting with her without the assistance and supervision of an adult. So basically, we could only interact with each other when another adult has both the time and is willing to put in the effort to set up an environment for us to communicate.

This got me thinking “how can my daughter and I interact during my work hours?”  The first thing I did was identify the main characteristics of my daughter, back when I first started working on this project:

• My daughter was one year old.
• Her vocal communication ability was in the preliminary stages of development
• Her motor skills where still not fully developed, so complex tasks like using a keyboard or mouse where not possible.
• She needs adult assistance to use our everyday communication tools that available to us (moble and land-line phones, computers, etc).

At this young age, children are extremely dependent on their parents and other adults for just about everything.  However, there are also several activities that come as naturally as breathing and eating to a child. Two of those activities that i observed where exploration and play, many times triggered by a common catalyst of curiosity.

Children gradually explore their environment and toys and interacted with them, mastering the new skills that they learn along the way. Quickly they are able to identify all sorts of toy input locations which triggered various types of output, such as audio and visual feedback.

Many people are quick to suggest that we need to expose children to computers at an early age, I don’t disagree.  However, there is no reason that we need to take a child to a some cold desk, when where they are already in-front of their toy box. Why not instead bring the computer to them, in their own natural environment, and make them available on their own terms. Computers come in various shapes and sizes, and are all around us. In washing machines, toasters, and most of the objects we interact with on a daily basis have them. Just look around you right now, I’m sure you would be surprised on the amount of digital technology that is surrounding you at this moment.

Digital toys, and interactive plush dolls are nothing new. Companies suck as Leap Frog have thrived on making toys which have been getting smarter and smarter. With the introduction of micro-controllers embedded deep inside their soft cuddly exterior, there are endless possibilities.  So that was my answer, I would prototype a interactive based toy solution, that both an adult and child could easily use to communicate with each other.  It is too easy to go into fantasy land with a project like this, so here were my self-imposed rules:

1. The toy must not cost more then $39 retail, since that is my personal breaking point for interactive toys.
2. It must work anywhere, and not be totally dependent on a network connection.
3. The child must need zero guidance to interact with the toy.
4. The toy must promote exploration
5. There must be some learning activities.
6. I must be able to interact with the toy from my office

Putting it all Together

I knew that I would like a toy that enabled “me” to interact with my child via audio or video, however I started seeing that as an obvious solution and not very cost of effective.  Why should parents be forced to buy individual toys for each person that would like to interact with the child?  My daughter has a mother, aunts, grandparents, etc. Would it be feasible of me buying one for each person?  More importantly, would the child be able to interact with such a fragmented family of toys at such an early age? What would be the total cost, $39 a piece? That is pretty steep, and won’t work as a solution in my opinion.  Taking all these questions into account gave me my “ah-ha” moment.  My family and I are part of my daughter’s social network, as exclusive as it may be. Looking at the toy as a social network would mean incorporating several functions that a typical social network would have.  I decided that the most important social network functions that my toy should support where:

• Avatars
• Buddy List
• Messaging

The Birth of my ChatterPillar

I decided to go with a completely modular design, so I could play off the metaphor of a family unit. One unit, one toy, multiple facets. Each facet containing unique actions associated to that family member. The modular design would also allow me to add and remove modules as I please.  This allows my toy to take a very literal approach to a buddy list.  If you wanted to add a buddy you would have to physically add your buddy to the toy and vice-versa. It also allowed for an interesting business model, add all the costly circuitry in the head (the brain) and allow for less expensive body modules to take advantage of the brains powersupply, and various other components like speakers, memory, etc. This along with some inner circuit  communication was all i needed to create the beginnings of what turned out to be myChatterPillar.  Bellow is a video showing my initial alpha prototype of myChatterPillar in action.

Main Features

My ChatterPillar has several features that have been incorporated into the design.

1. There is a photo sleeve on each of the detachable modules which serve as an avatar.
2. There are 3 audio switches. The one beneath the photo is to identify the family member, and the two on the legs is for adding any other audio, like messages, song, etc. These audio buckets are created online by the adult via a accompanying web site, and the files are later synced to the toy via a tethered USB connection.
3. Adults could remotely communicate with the toy and send messages to it via familiar technology such as email, twitter and SMS
4. Embeded assessments to test the child’s familiarity with their family and colors.

Where to go from here

My next steps are to take this toy out of it’s bread board stage, and into a more complete embodiment. I initially looked at this project as a method of communicating with my daughter, but would be great to get it out there some day so other families could also enjoy interacting with their young children. To be continued….

The iPhone revolution placed blinders on us all, and many of us forgot the obvious. Remember years ago, when you would go to a site only to be greeted with a “Sorry we do not support your current browser, this site is optimized for IE 6″, you would be forced to close you current session on the non-IE browser and open up IE to view the site. What a pain! Eventually, javascript libraries like JQuery, and the adoption of CSS standards have made that less of an issue, although you still see this once in a while. The main difference however between the browser wars, and mobile wars is that browser all interpreted HTML and CSS, with only slight differences. Mobile phone native coding language on the other hand are extremely different. iPhone coding looks very different then Android, which look different the Windows Mobile. That means more resources need to be allocate on a project, costing the perspective client more money. Not exactly a smart investment, and unfortunately there is no “Export to Android” option in Apple’s XCode software.

To help put this in perspective, just imagine a client coming in, and being irate because a site you built for them only works in Firefox. I am guessing the conversation would go a little something like:

Client: Hey, I just checked out the site in Safari and it didn’t work
You: “Sorry, Safari is extra”.
Client: Extra? But i paid you to make me a website!
You: “No, you paid us to make a Firefox website”.
Client: “Isn’t that the same thing?”
You: “No that will require substantial more work, but we could give you an estimate on that”
Client: What about IE?
You: “Yep that will cost you too!”
Client: And Chrome?
You: Sorry we don’t have an in-house Chrome developer. We won’t be able to support that

Luckily I was not the only one to get this “ah-ha” moment, and I ran into multiple projects such as PhoneGap (@PhoneGap), Titanium (@jhaynie), and Rhodes Mobile (@rhomobile). Adobe eventually joined the party (disclaimer: I haven’t actually tried this yet) with the addition of the “Export to iPhone” option, which promises to include the rest of the mobile devices soon. I decided on PhoneGap, simply for the fact that it supported the most hardware (iPhone, Android, Windows 7 Phone, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Symbian, Palm Pre, a few others), was written all in JavaScript/HTML5/CSS. PhoneGap creates a bridge between Objective-C and Javascript through WebKit so I could call native functions like the Camera, Vibrate, etc. on all the aforementioned devices. Being able to to use the same codebase for “ALL” devices is something that not only applies to my needs, but makes it easier to pursue a client, and pitch them an app that will work on as many mobile platforms as possible, giving them the highest return on investment.

There are scenarios where using a fully native solution would probably make sense, however even in those scenarios creating a fully iPhone solution doesn’t make sense. If you use something like Unity3D for high end game development you get iPhone, Android, and even Playstation exports. This holds true for other game development environments like Torque2D & 3D, and even Flash CS5.

Unforunitly all these options have entered a state of limbo, due to Apple’s new adjustment of it’s terms of service:

Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

No official word, but I highly doubt that PhoneGap will be affected by this, since it runs out of XCode and uses Objective-C to speak with JavaScript inside of Webkit, which seems to fall in line. I am pretty sure that Unity3D is also safe since you could open up a Unity3D project in XCode and see all the Objective-C. My problem is that there are other programs, specifically Flex/AIR and Mono that are very suited to do mobile development.

This by no means is this a gripe about Flash or any other program being left out, I’ve prided myself in using ANY technology that works and makes the most business sense for each specific project. Even if it means learning an entirely new development environment which is what I initially did by learning Objective-C. However, Objective-C made no sense for me nor my clients needs, if a project came up where Objective-C was needed then by all means I would code it in Objective-C. For now I am happy with PhoneGap. It does the job, and does it well, my only issue is that JavaScript isn’t naturally Object Oriented, which forces me to come up with solution to mimic an Object Oriented environment. This is what enables me to keep my sanity. It also allows me to make any adjustment, or enhancements to the PhoneGap code if the need arises, since i could easily fork the PhoneGap Objective-C code from their repository.

UPDATE (5/15/2010): Engadget reports that PhoneGap framework fine for App Store development

I decided to take a trip to my daughter’s toy collection to examine some of the sensing capabilities that her electronic toys offer. I will specifically focus on the toys input capabilities:

(At the end of the post there is a video of me trying to figure out how the LeapFrog Tag Jr works. Let me know your thoughts.)

Fisher-Price Elmo Live Encore

This is by far one my daughters favorite toys. The toy is modeled after Elmo, a Sesame Street character, which most children a quickly drawn to by his bright red color, large eyes, and youthfully fun voice.

Inputs

• Push Buttons: Typically buttons on toys are visually obvious, however Fisher Price decided to create an exploratory interaction by spreading out four button throughout the plush doll. Three of the buttons are hidden under the fabric, on the toe, chest, and back, and the final button switch is closed by squeezing his nose.
• Tilt Sensor: One of the nice additions that the creators added to the toy was integration of a Tilt Sensor. When Elmo falls on his side, he politely ask for help to stand backup, which is sometime accompanied with a joke.

LeapFrog Learn & Groove™ Musical Table

We originally got this toy when our daughter was showing signs of wanting to stand on her own. The toy itself is stuffed with several auditory and visual feedback that really grabs her attention.

Inputs

• Push Buttons: Typically buttons on toys are visually obvious, however Fisher Price decided to create an exploratory interaction by spreading out four button throughout the plush doll. Three of the buttons are hidden under the fabric, on the toe, chest, and back, and the final button switch is closed by squeezing his nose.
• Toggling Buttons: From watching my daughter play with this section of the table, I noticed that the design decision was probably based around learning not only shapes, but also cause and effect. When she presses one, the previously pressed button switch pops up to an open state.
• Flipping : This might be one of my daughter favorite interactions. It may be partly due to the fact that we read a lot of books to her, or it might just be an intrinsic curiosity that makes her want to flip things over. Feedback is dispatched when the child flips the pages of the book on the center of the toy, and also when they open the small compartment on one of the sides. I would imagine that the switch is hidden on the hinge of the book. Each page has individual hinges that are associate with it. Once the page is flipped and crosses the angular threshold an embedded audio file is dispatched, along with some dancing LEDs.
• Slider: The slider, is a “slider” in the physical interaction sense of the word. However the slider does not send an analog signal, or at least is doesn’t technically need too. I believe that the reason for the design decision was mainly an educational one to create opportunity to exercise multiple sensory motor functions (sliding, twisting, pushing, flipping, etc.)

LeapFrog My Pal Violet

This product is actually one of my favorites. In the exterior it seems like a pretty straight forward digitally enhanced plush toy, but it add another layer of interaction for the parent, which evolves connecting the toy to the computer via USB and downloading audio files onto the toy. There is also some slight visual feedback from the LED that is housed in the plastic bone around the toy’s neck.

Inputs

Push Buttons: There are 4 normally open push buttons, each living on one of the plush dog’s paws. All the buttons, have iconic representations of the type of audio that it will dispatch once the switch is closed: Music, Action, Lullaby , and Power Off.

Parental Interaction
Keyboard/Mouse: The toy comes with a desktop application that syncs with the toy via USB. The parent could then select which audio files to have the available to the toy. They are also able to personalizing some the interaction, by selecting from a list of names.

LeapFrog Spin and Sing Alphabet Zoo

This was probably the first toy that my daughter mastered at a couple months old. She almost looked like a boxer spinning the all the letters round and round, and enjoy the audio that is dispatched on the toys active state. Once the action stops, and the spinning section comes to a stop, the audio dispatches which animal or letter is in between the arrows, sort of like the large wheel from Wheel of fortune.

Inputs

Without gutting this toy (my wife would kill me) I’m not too sure how they made this work, however my best guess is:

Metal roller/ball bearing & Metal Plate contact: each of the 25 selections have individual plates that are connected to some sort of Shift register or multiplexer. As the the spinning action occurs the fixed conductive roller stays in contact with each of the plates that passes by. Once an individual contact is closed for about a second, the spin cycle is assumed to have finished, and the appropriate audio file is dispatched. Not sure if this is accurate since this may add friction. I can’t be sure unless i open it up.

Here is a video of my daughter playing with this toy:

LeapFrog Learn & Groove Counting Maracas

These are bionic baby rattles/maraca that sense when they are being shaken. Once they are shaken an array of lights and melodies start to play. These are lots of fun, and has an added affordance of making adults act like complete fools.

Input

• Slide Switch: This is just a simple multi state switch to adjust various mode settings
• Accelerometer or Tilt Switch: Not sure exactly how they are sensing movement, but typically you would use either a tilt switch, or accelerometer. I would put money on the tilt switch mainly for cost, and being that the accelerometer may be overkill.

Fisher-Price Go Baby Go! Crawl-Along Musical Ball

We bought this toy when the baby was in the brink of starting of crawling. The interaction involves rolling the ball and watch the illusion of the monkey keeping it’s balance, while letting out some humorous squeals.

Input
The only input for this toy is sensing that the ball is in movement. Since the ball roll only in one direction, I would imagine a spinning tilt switch is all that was needed to sense when the ball was in motion.

LeapFrog Tag Junior Book Pal – Purple

One of my friends bought this toy for my daughter, which is a bit advanced for her, however extremely impressive. This toy serves a scaffold for children that are learning to read. By simply touching the pen on the area of the word, it dispatches an audio files that speaks the word that they child selected.

Input

It is totally beyond me how this technology works, but I will post up a video of me trying to guess. No idea if will actually be right, and unfortunately I need to wait till my daughter could read before I could take it apart, so a guess will do for now.


My guess on how the LeapFrog Tag Junior works:

Update: So it turns out I was correct…woohoo! I did a few searches and ran into the LeapFrog FlyPaper Pen. I didn’t event know LeapFrog made this. Anyhow, I downloaded the manual and this is what it says under “How it works”. (would have been a lot easier if they added that section in the Tag manual).

I also found another guy who made a video about the same exact topic, and had the same answer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6yKZ1wjUgg

The secret of good teaching is to regard the child’s intelligence as a fertile field in which seeds may be sown, to grow under the heat of flaming imagination. Our aim therefore is not merely to make the child understand, and still less to force him to memorize, but so to touch his imagination as to enthuse him to his inner most core. — Maria Montessori

Why Serious Games are not Fun
This was an obvious question to start off the talk. Typically the games that I have seen, that focus on learning loss their sense of playfulness. According to Will, this is not necessarily due to the topic, but to craftsmanship of the game design in general.

“I am convince you could make any topic fun. You could make a movie about the most interesting thing in the world and make it boring as well.”

According to Will, most Serious Game designers take the obvious approach to designing a game about an instructional topic. Instead designers should learn to take a different perspective. An interesting example he shared was, if you where teaching about Malaria, a typical game would probably center around being in the Peace Corp. What if you flipped it around and played the part of Malaria, and your objective was to take out as many humans as you can. Interesting perspective, and I could see how that would be much more engaging without sacrificing any educational content.

The value of games, is being able to easily change our perspective via our role in the games. By placing ourselves in different types of shoes, we have the opportunity to peer at topics from angles that may not have been available through traditional linear media. When concepts are not taken from such a rigid straight forward approach and deconstructed, areas of playfulness emerge.

The Evolution of Media
Will noted that every new media is forced to take on the criticisms of prior existing media. He mentioned how books, where seen as a tool of the devil, because of the engagement that it produced. This isn’t much different then how games are sometimes perceived by some of society today. Games are still in their infancy, and the generational gap is creeping closer by the day. In media, history proves to be a repetitive cycle:

I do not think I am exaggerating the possibility of this invention when I tell you that it is my firm belief that one day there will be a telephone in every major town in America – Alexander Graham Bell

According to Will, media typically is developed to solve very specific problems, but though an evolutionary cycle it starts evolving into mass entertainment. I see this happening with Augmented Reality at the moment. Heads Up Displays (HUDs) where originally developed as an interaction experience that fighter pilots could use to fly planes w/o having to look down at their gauges and loss sight of their targets. Now Augmented Reality has entered the world of film, television and games for entertainment purpose.

Linear Stories vs. Interactive Play
In linear stories we take a more observer route, and base most of our experience around empathy, based on the predefined decisions that the director made. In a sense, linear stories allow the director to “see into the future” to make decision on which camera angle to select to produce the most empathetical response.

Interactive Play enables the ability for agency, participation, and choice. Players could “effect the situation” by identifying and exploring options.

Games and Learning
Games are learning, much like our everyday actions require us to constantly build models of the world around us. These models are then stored in our imagination, and we then reference our imaginations to create a simulation in our mind that result in choices. Will breaks down imagination to several components: Classification, Causality, Empathy, and Agency.

Humans look for pattern constantly which derive from these components, and help in developing a schema. These schema are based on all the data we have come across which we are constantly referring to and updating. This is what he describes as our learning process, however to build these schema, we have to base them on examples, which is one of the obstacles we face in learning. Luckily we could extend our data collection via others experiences and simulated experiences we create through the use of toys which we could pull data out of to add to our schema. Both of these could be refereed to as “Story” and “Play”, both of which are Will describes as Educational Technologies.

As kids play games they take on an a approach very similar to a scientific method. They immediately start to create models of the virtual worlds that they could later apply to the real world. They build onto their schema through play, and test the success of the schema through games.

The player will build an internal model of your system. If you don’t help them build it, they’ll probably build the wrong one – Will Wright

Tools are also very important, which he describes as “amplifiers for imagination”. A few of the properties that Will Wright likes to use when designing tools are:

• High Leverage
• Fun to Use
• Useful
• Social
• Multipurpose

Through the use of this medium, the most beneficial thing that games and play could do for education is motivation. Increasing the intrinsic motivation, enable children to learn, without consciously being aware that they are learning. This enables education to look less like a chore, and much more engaging.

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of the fire – William Butler Yeats

Will on Social Gaming
Will notes that, the more a game is about someone, the more emotionally engaged they become because, “People in general are kind of narcissistic.” By not only making a game about the player, but also including their social networks, you create a “social currency” between the player and their network which results in its “stickiness”. This format allows your relationships outside of the game to integrate into the landscape of the game. Compared to more highly immersive gaming, in this format your social landscape is what drives the play, creating much deeper engagement.

Time Playing x Social Relevance = World Impact

Failure is Good
Although all of Will’s talk was amazingly informative, his talk on “failure” was most notable. He mentioned how games are comprised of interaction loops that adjust over time. Each loop is comprise of both success and failure. By mastering each cycle you are able to move onto learning your next skill. Will’s example talked on how the fist few seconds of game play might be learning the basic interaction controls, you could only move onto the next interaction loop once you have mastered the current one. An interesting note that Will made regarding his experience analyzing the usage patterns of Sims players, is that most players enjoyed exploring the failure side of the game.

Here is a quote from another talk Will Wright did regarding failure:

One of the counter intuitive things I needed to learn as a designer was that players enjoy failures more than success. As long as it’s diverse, they like to explore the failure space of a game.

Learning is exploring a failure space. Once you’ve mapped out all the wrong paths, you can avoid them as easily as the furniture in your room when you’re walking around it at night. The point of classroom exercises and homework is to guide students through the failure space of knowledge, exploring the wrong turns and blind alleys, as well as identifying the right path.

Will Vision for the Future of Gaming
Most people think of the future of gaming as an enhancement of:

• Artificial Intelligence
• Hyper real Graphics
• Advanced Physics
• World Simulations
• User Generated Content

Will takes a different perspective at looking at games of the future

• Fractal Entertainment: By this he means entertainment across a wide variety of platforms. This would include movies, game, books. Will stated that, The magic circle of storytelling and game environments are fractalizing
• Non-Immersive Games: This would include gaming formats such as the Wii and DDR. “Most of the entrainment for me comes not from the game, but what the players around me are doing…Playing the game outside of the computer in it’s real world context.” Context aware gaming that mobile device offer through geo-location, along with interaction experiences like Augmented reality are enabling users to experience the world around them from a different perspectives.
• Bandwidth Symmetry
• Expressive Play
• Psychological Profiling: Games will evolve to fit you much like your own dream state
• Relevance: Games will be more relevant to your life. They more relevant they are the more value you get from them.

What I Came out With
I too believe that games could help children learn “any” topic. However, we as designers need to deconstruct these topics to uncovers playful experiences. We should also allow for the kids to create and test their models, becoming producers of content and not only consumers. This is not only missing in educational gaming, but in formal educational settings as well. Students are typically consumers of knowledge, listening to their teacher lecture in front of class and expected to retain the knowledge.

Game designers should try to give special attention to the failure states. They should be varied, and player must be given ample feedback to clearly understand why it happened, and should be allowed to easily explore and learn from them. The tools should also be fun, and not feel like tools, they should feel like toys. They should also be able to take assets from a game built with it’s tools and use them in other areas outside of the game.

Will Wright, by far has been one my favorite speakers I have had the opportunity to watch speaking live, and would highly recommend everyone to go and check him out, if given the opportunity.

So here is my prediction, for what ever it is worth..

The very first hardware add-on for the iPad will advertise will be a swivel camera which will connect to the phone as a peripheral device and answer the question of both parties. This will be great for the Augmented reality, video conferencing, and casual photographers who are all equally as upset at the decision to ax it out of the iPad. It will also make it much easier for asset creation on their iWorks and other production apps.

The reason that I say “maybe”, is due to several factors. Mainly, it is too early to pass any judgment since hardware doesn’t automatically mean good software. If we look at desktop computers there are a slew of educational games and software, yet most are useless and ungrounded with any educational theory. So does this mean that it is bad? No, it means as educators you will have to collaborate with your personal network of fellow educators to identify all the good software available and develop strategies in how to integrate it within a classroom environment. Not exactly a new concept, yet it has been one of the major stumbling blocks in educational technology in general.

With most technology, I like to step back from all the hype and really analyze the hardware for what it is. Although the App Store is not saturated with amazing educational software, that shouldn’t count it out of being a viable platform. So let’s break it down to affordances and limitations:

Bigger is better?
Pro: Enables larger collaborative groups and “over the shoulder” viewing encouraging meaningful discourse.
Con: For younger children, bigger is not necessarily better. This maybe a bit bulky compared to a smartphone.

Multitouch:
Pro: The larger screen will allow for multiple students to interact with the screen, and also afford collaboration and discourse. Android is said to be incorporating multi-touch in future releases of the OS
Con: I am not certain, but i beloved that the iPhone is limited to 5 simultaneous touch points, which limits the collaborative aspect. This means that if that no more then 5 fingers will be recognized at any given time. If anyone knows the

Mutitasking
Pro: Sorry can’t think of any.
Con: Could become a pain to have to close in and out of programs, especial once more complex rich interfaces become available. Once you move from entertainment to productivity this becomes an issue. Having to close out of programs to check your email could prove to be a major headache.

Camera:
Pro: What camera? Can’t think of any pro here.
Con: Great you could make Keynote presentation, but you can’t take a picture of your science project. Doesn’t seem like a seamless experience. Adding an external peripheral will just add to the bulkiness, hopefully this will show up in the next generation.

Video:
Pro: Sorry, no camera means no video.
Con: This means no video conferencing, no creation of video assets, and no augmented reality.

Flash Support
Pro: This depends on your personal preference, but some people might prefer no flash. However allowing users to enable and disable flash would be a more democratic alternative.
Con: Much of the educational software that is online is Flash based, such as videos and animations (Brain Pop), games, and simulations.

iBook:
Pro: This could help cut cost on textbook, and will probably expedite publishers offering electronic versions of their books. It will also help me, as an avid book reader to limit the clutter in my basement.
Con: There has been no official partner for textbooks, however there is a rumor that McGraw Hill is in talks with Apple.

Since Apple is offering iBook as a native app, I am under the impression that this would mean that creating a better iBook app would conflict with Apple’s strict terms of services agreement that all iPhone developers must adhere too. According to the agreement, developers are not allowed to mimic any functionality that the iphone already offers.

As a student myself, it is too early to tell if the iBook will suit all of my needs. However, if Steve Jobs happens to read this post, then here is my wish list. Easy highlighting, inline note taking, tagging, bibliography exporting, and social note taking. I would like to make my side notes public on research that I do, and see the reactions of my peers attached to the exact context in the book. Essentially I want Diigo for books. Get on that Steve! Thanks!

DRM
Pro: The only pro to any Digital Rights Management goes to both the publisher and Apple.
Con: Understandable that publishers would like DRM to protect their content from piracy, however according to a post sent by adobe.:

It looks like Apple is continuing to impose restrictions on their devices that limit both content publishers and consumers. Unlike many other ebook readers using the ePub file format, consumers will not be able to access ePub content with Apple’s DRM technology on devices made by other manufacturers.

So what are the ramifications of such a decision? Suppose you start buying all you school textbooks from iTunes on your iPad. In college level courses you could start racking up expensive books rather quickly. Hypothetically speaking, next year Google, Amazon, or any other company may puts out an amazing piece of hardware that better suits your needs. Unfortunately, under Apple’s restriction you are faced with the decision of not being able to transport your books to the new device, or being forced to stick with Apple. I doubt this would last very long, since they did the same thing with MP3 several years ago, and the market forced them to offer DRM free music, but who knows. Do you remember the pain of trying to place an MP3 song on a CD?

Bluetooth:
Pro: students could wear wireless headphones to not disrupt other students, while still reviving appropriate auditory feedback.
Con: apple continues to only support only a subset of Bluetooth. This makes communicating with wireless physical devices such as a keyboard, mouse, or some other Bluetooth enable device impossible without jailbreaking your phone, and installing btstack. Enabling full access would open up so many opportunities as developers. Here is a non-educational related example of what HumanAPI along with BTStack could do. Enabling students to interact with the physical world is always good.

HumanApi, Sports ECG in real life from uxebu on Vimeo.

These are just a few, I am sure you could all come up with others, so feel free to add them into the comments. As a developer and technologist that loves learning about education, I feel it is part of the process to identify what tools are available to me. More educational software developers and designers should take the time to really dig deep into the guts of any sort of interaction they are proposing, and make sure they align with some sort of educational theory, and how limitation could effect their design and target market. There is no way to truly answer if any technology is good for education since it is really dependent on the software execution and how well it has been integrated and delivered by the instructor and what types of scaffolds the instructor provides.

Personally, as much as i think that the iPad is a great piece of hardware, I am hopping that the rumored Google/HTC tablet version takes away some of the cons that i listed (naturally they will be replaced with other cons), or that Apple corrects them in future releases, but that is to be discussed another day. I plan on holding off and see how the market reacts to the iPad before i make an decisions for my personal use, but at some point I, like many other will have to get some sort of tablet/e-reader.

According to the Sobel Media website:

Augmented Reality may be new to your lexicon, but if you watch televised football, it’s already part of your weekend routine: the “1st and 10” line is a leading example of this emerging technology. From Esquire magazine to James Cameron’s blockbuster “Avatar,” technologists are redefining photo realism by integrating graphics from the screen with our real-world environments. Augmented reality blurs the line between what’s real and what’s computer-generated to enhance what we see, hear, feel and smell.
At our next event, we’ll explore and predict the business potential for Augmented Reality…from advertising to marketing, to entertainment and education…and beyond.

Augmented Reality is nothing new, however the barrier of implantation are what have kept the technology from flourishing, much like rise and fall of Virtual Reality, which i predict will be making a comeback soon. Through the use of opensource software such as the Flash based implementation of ARToolKit by the name of FLARToolKit, it has enable the experience to be accessible to a mainstream audience. Although marker based augmented reality experiences are just one of many possible implementations, it does open up a third dimensional opportunity, through the use of a any browser that supports Flash, a printed marker, FLARToolKit, and any of the popular 3D flash libraries such as Away3D or Papervision.

Bellow is the Esquire Magazine’s implementation of the user experience:

Another quite creative implementation by http://www.t-post.se, the self proclaimed “world’s first wearable magazine”:

Although these types of execution could be quite powerful for a brand, there is a very thin line between novelty and practicality. Both are by far one of the best implementation, however there are hundreds of “not so great” passive implementations that litter youtube.

Taking a step back from the initial wow factor that this type of experience offers, and analyzing the additional affordances that this type of experience offers the user, we could start to identify some amazing tools that could be leverage in an educational setting.

According to Affordances and Limitations of Immersive Participatory Augmented Reality Simulations for Teaching and Learning :

Research on how people learn suggests that learning and cognition are complex social phenomena distributed across mind, activity, space, and time (Chaiklin and Lave 1993; Hutchins 1995; Wenger 1998). A student’s engagement and identity as a learner is shaped by his or her collaborative participation in communities and groups, as well as the practices and beliefs of these communities. Yet creating classroom activities that allow students to engage in authentic practices that involve communities of learning is challenging, especially when it comes to authentic prac- tices of science (Chinn and Malhotra 2002).

Here are a few that i have, but feel free to add any others in the comments:

• Situating activity: By creating a partially immersive environment the student is able to engage in meaningful activities.
• Multiple fields of viewing: The student has the ability to control their perspective by adjusting the marker in 3D space. This is leaps beyond the 2D experience that books, televisions, and most computer environments offer.
• Testing Hypothesis: Since the models are virtual, student could safely test hypothesis, by adjusting variable attributes that directly effect the virtual model. This by far is one the most important affordances that gets under utilized, with the most educational impact. By allowing students to safely test hypothesis in a real-time immersive environment, there would be less of cognitive strain which creating accurate mental models of events posses with text and static photos. This also give the learner control of their experience, which help them in constructing their own knowledge.
• Cost: As web cameras are increasingly becoming a norm and integrated directly into computers, theoretically the only additional cost to a classroom is the price of one sheet of paper that you print out a marker on.

The MIT Teacher Education Program, in conjunction with The Education Arcade, has been working on creating “Augmented Reality” simulations to engage people in simulation games that combine real world experiences with additional information supplied to them by handheld computers.

HARP, another example which was developed with funding from a U.S. Department of Education Star Schools Program grant, allowed researchers at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and the Teacher Education Program at MIT have developed an “augmented reality” game designed to teach math and science literacy skills to middle school students.

The game is played on a Dell Axim handheld computer and uses Global Positioning System (GPS) technology to correlate the students’ real world location to their virtual location in the game’s digital world. As the students move around a physical location, such as their school playground or sports fields, a map on their handheld displays digital objects and virtual people who exist in an augmented reality world superimposed on real space. This capability parallels the new means of information gathering, communication, and expression made possible by emerging interactive media (such as Web-enabled, GPS equipped cell phones with text messaging, video, and camera features).

Here is another interesting implementation of AR for an educational setting:

Here is a “dramatization” of some of the possibilities in education, which include enhancing the modalities that books could supply. Although a dramatization, asides from the eyeglasses, which are not available as of today, most if not all the scenarios are possible with today’s technology:

Augmented Reality – VFX Breakdown from soryn on Vimeo.

Background

Young children learn how to recognize and identify things such as numbers and letters at school. What they don’t learn from their teachers is how to recognize and properly express emotions. This is something they are expected to learn at home, but if a young child has been abused or lives in a household where the only emotions they’re exposed to are negative, they don’t have the opportunity to gain emotional intelligence and build emotional literacy. Young children need to be taught how to properly recognize and express their emotions to fully realize their potential and to avoid unnecessary conflict in school and social settings.

EEMIO, which stands for Enabling Emotional Instruction & Observation, is a physical toy coupled with a web site that provides children with activities and lessons that help them build their emotional intelligence or EQ by developing emotional vocabulary, also known as “feeling words” as well as coping mechanisms for emotional situations. A child’s inability to express or recognize emotions can lead to behavioral problems which extend to the classroom and ultimately affect their learning experience. By understanding and learning to identify different types of emotions, children can apply methods of self-regulation.

It can be difficult for adults such as social workers to get children to discuss their feelings if they try to sit down and talk about it. Allowing young children to interact with a toy and web site provides a level of safety and familiarity that encourages them to open up more. This approach allows adults to expand on topics the child might have touched upon during their interactions with the toy.

According to the Emotional Literacy Campaign at www.feel.org “ ‘Emotional Literacy’ is the ability to recognize, understand and appropriately express our emotions.”

“If teachers and other significant adults do not encourage them to express their emotions, then children of both sexes can be at risk for emotional, behavioral, academic, and social problems that can be carried into adulthood. Helping children to express themselves verbally and in writing plays a key role in nurturing resiliency in preschool and throughout academic life.” (Novick, R. 2002)

Using a combination of therapy techniques, an interactive toy and a web site, EEMIO will teach young children how to identify feelings and cope with negative emotions, in a fun, hands-on way, improving their emotional intelligence and helping them deal with social conflict at school and at home.

EEMIO’s Objectives

• Recognize that everyone has emotions
• Understand and interpret “feeling words” in order to communicate vocally or in written words.
• Differentiate between emotions through visual and/or auditory means.
• Understand that events influence emotion.
• Classify hypothetical events that would elicit a specific emotion.
• Implement strategies for behavioral modification and anger management
• Execute procedural strategies to assist in problem solving.
• Comprehend that actions can influence other people’s emotional states

.

Primary Target Audience

Demographic Characteristics

• Ages 5-7
• Elementary school
• Have played with toys
• Enjoy role playing
• Have played video games before (infrequent to frequent game play)
• Have behavioral or physical issues

Cognitive Characteristics

• Low prior knowledge of emotional intelligence
• Varying levels of social and communication skills
• Starting to develop empathy towards others

All children who interact with EEMIO are expected to be supervised by adults, including social work professionals, counselors, teachers and parents. EEMIO attempts to open up dialog with children who might be closed off to adults but feel more comfortable talking with or through EEMIO. Some of these children will be living in circumstances that put them under emotional stress, so it is especially important that they learn to express their feelings. Studies have shown that in modern society, “As children grow ever smarter in IQ, their emotional intelligence is on the decline.” (Goleman, D. 2005) Thus children with and without problems will be able to benefit from EEMIO.

Secondary Target Audience

• Social Worker
• Guidance Counselor
• Special Education Teacher
• Day Care Center
• Early Childhood Education (Pre K-1)
• Parents

The Idea

EEMIO is a dual experience with tight integration between the physical toy and the web site. Although it is not out of the ordinary for toys to be coupled with other sorts of activities and mediums, most of the time these experiences are disjointed. EEMIO enables synchronicity through constant communication between the toy and the computer program.

Emotion is a topic and skill that must be externalized and communicated to others. EEMIO enables selected members of the learner’s community to be involved both inside and outside of the play experience. As a community, teachers, counselors,and parents, can take an active role in the emotional growth of their children. Through the use of EEMIO, they have access to “The Parent’s Corner” which gives them important information regarding emotional literacy, and allows them to have direct access to various assessment tools measuring growth in the child.

The above adult facilitators, will also take major roles in the desktop game activities provided by the EEMIO experience. Embedded as non-playing characters they will be represented in the child’s game play activities, and serve as an extension of their support. This functionality will be described in more detail under the desktop game character roles section of this document. The chart on the left demonstrates the organizational framework of the EEMIO experience.

Although activities may vary over time, the overall interaction
flow stays consistent throughout. This iterative process takes the learner through the stages of problem solving.

Interactions are broken up into 7 stages:

1. Playing with EEMIO: During this period the learner plays with the EEMIO toy through participating in various activities.
2. Defining the problem: During play, EEMIO transition through various emotions. The toy communicates the emotion in the form of narrative storytelling, creating a backstory that will give meaning to the subsequent activities.
3. Confronting the problem: EEMIO directs the learner to go to the computer and help find a way for it to feel better. Supplied with the narrative backstory the learner explores the EEMIO desktop game and participates in various problem solving activities.
4. Receiving Tool: As the learner explores the virtual environment, they are met by various non-playing characters, such as the Teacher/School Social Worker. This virtual character teaches the learner various techniques for developing emotional coping strategies that may help EEMIO.
5. Practicing to use the tool: Throughout the game, learners will be confronted with activities that allow them to use and share tools.
6. Analyzing effectiveness: The learner’s effective, or ineffective use of the tools is directly correlated to EEMIO’s emotional meter bar on the bottom of the screen.
7. Resolving the problem: Once the meter reaches 100% capacity, EEMIO is once again happy, and grateful.
8. Gain a Reward: After each mission, a reward is granted to the learner in the form of a newly unlocked activity in the physical toy, or a ribbon or badge in the online game.

Toy Platform

EEMIO, is an electronic plush toy which incorporates internal sensors which include, a gyroscope and accelerometer that detect the toy’s orientation at all times. The toy is also WiFi enabled, allowing it to sync through a LAN connection, and pass data back and forth. The data is then stored in a solid state Flash Drive that is also embedded inside the toy.

All interaction is programed in the toy’s internal micro-controller. Actions are parsed through EEMIO’s program, and appropriate feedback is dispatched via embedded speakers, visual LEDs, and haptic servo.

EEMIO’s Toy Design

Form: EEMIO is an androgenous toy, suitable for both male and female children. Due to the possibility of multiple users in a therapy environment, the toy should be constructed with durable material that is easily removable and washable.

EEMIO is shaped like a tetrahedron, which allows the representation
of four separate emotions in one toy. This creates an affordance for exploratory interaction, allowing children to quickly move from one emotion to another.
Another reason for the use of a tetrahedron is the shapes’ unique capability to rest on all sides. This makes it possible to always have one active state on the toy depending on its orientation. The toy stands at 10 inches high, and 7 inches wide making EEMIO large enough to be “huggable”, and also capable of housing; batteries, microprocessor, sensors. 4 LED buttons, servo, and a durable casing that holds all the circuitry intact.

The final consideration was EEMIO’s ability to be an extension of the child’s voice. Loren Britez, a social worker and child advocate of a West New York, NJ public school states that, “many times during therapy sessions, children find it difficult to be vocal. When this happens I [Social Worker’s] refer them to inanimate objects to help scaffold their communication.” (Britez, 2009)

Since EEMIO is comprised of different visual emotional representations, the learner could use the EEMIO’s physical form as alternate method of communicating with a therapist. When asked how they are feeling, they could simply flip EEMIO to the emotion that best describes their present state.

Function: EEMIO expresses itself through the use of auditory
feedback and cueing dialog, that is triggered via motion sensitivity, or immediately following an action taken by the user. This feedback is accompanied by visual (blinking LED buttons) and haptic responses (toy vibrates).

The integration of lights (LED) embedded in the buttons, which are located on the each of the 4 ends of the tetrahedron, serves the dual purpose of signalling the user to take an action, and visually interpreting the active emotion through the use of color.

Manner of Behavior: EEMIO is a social robot that uses dialog as a source for creating contextual mappings and narratives resulting in “meaningful” use of the content being learned.

EEMIO has three modes that are directly dependent on its current
emotional state, and whether the learner is actively logged into EEMIO’s desktop software activities.

1. Playful EEMIO: When EEMIO is happy he asks the learner to participate in several interactive activities such as, sing-a-longs, story time (choose your own adventure), and general play. During this time EEMIO actively asks the learner to talk about their feeling, through the use of open ended questioning.
2. Distressed EEMIO: In this mode EEMIO demonstrates the initial steps of problem solving, by supplying the learner with information about an unfortunate event that has caused EEMIO to feel sad, scared or angry. EEMIO then invites the learner to help resolve the issue through the use of the desktop game environment.
3. Software Synched (Feedback & Encouraging) EEMIO: Once the learner has launched the desktop application, both the EEMIO toy and the computer software wirelessly sense each other, and automatically sync. During the learner’s interaction with the game, the EEMIO toy offers “over the shoulder” feedback and any needed scaffolding.

Toy Feedback

Physical Orientation:
If at anytime EEMIO’s orientation changes to one of the four possible states (happy, sad, angry, scared), then the leaner will be supplied with an audio cue that supports the toy’s active state.

Inactivity Reminder:
Through the use of an accelerometer, and an internal timer programed into EEMIO’s software, the toy will be able to accurately estimate drops in physical engagement. In the event that EEMIO detects that it has not been interacted with for more than thirty seconds, the toy dispatches audio reflective of the toy’s emotional state to maintain engagement.

Interactive Toy Based Activities

As the learner physically interacts with the EEMIO toy, they are presented with various activities. Each of the activities support active participation through problem solving, kinesthetic reasoning, or audio cueing.

Sing-a-long:
EEMIO takes the act of singing and adds an additional level of interaction which is controlled by the learner. The songs are short, easy to memorize, age appropriate and have learning goals attached to them.

“How do you feel?”, is a song that is intended to encourage the learner to vocally state how they feel. After EEMIO instructs the learner on the singing task, EEMIO invites the learner to sing-a-long.

How do you feel?
How do you feel?
Are you glad,
are you sad?
Are you really really mad?
Just stand right up and yell,
[Leaners Audio Cue]
I’m _________!
[EEMIO: pauses for a second and states it current emotional active state]

Some activities take advantage of EEMIO’s embedded circuitry, which enables EEMIO to be aware of the active emotional state. In the following example the learner is able to control the music by simply rotating the EEMIO toy to any emotion.

“If you’re Happy and you know it, clap your hands.”
“If you’re Happy and you know it, clap your hands.”
“If you’re Happy and you know it, and you really want to show it”
“If you’re Happy and you know it, clap your hands”
[Learner flips EEMIO over to the angry side]
“If you’re Angry and you know it, stomp your feet,”
“If you’re Angry and you know it, stomp your feet,”
“If you’re Angry and you know it, and you really want to show it”
“If you’re Angry and you know it, stomp your feet.”
[Learner flips EEMIO over to the sad side]
“If you’re Sad and you know it, cry a tear, boo hoo.”
“If you’re Sad and you know it, cry a tear, boo hoo.”
“If you’re Sad and you know it, and you really want to show it”
“If you’re Sad and you know it, cry a tear, boo hoo.”
[Learner flips EEMIO over to the scared side]
If you’re scared and you know it Give a shiver. Brrrr
If you’re scared and you know it, give a shiver. Brrrr
If you’re scared and you know it and you really want to show it
If you’re scared and you know it, give a shiver. Brrrr

Story time (Choose your own adventure):
EEMIO has the ability to transmit interactive stories to the learner. These stories require the learner to chose their own adventure based on how they believe a specific event would make the character feel. There are no wrong answers in this activity, only consequences based on their decisions.
[EEMIO says]
It’s story time! When you hear [Ding!] flip me over to the emotion that describes how the character may be feeling at that moment.
[EEMIO continues reading]
”…then Johnny’s sister threw his goldfish down the toilet and flushed it!” [Sound *Ding!]
[Learner flips EEMIO over to the angry side and presses the flashing button]
[EEMIO continues reading]
”Johnny was so angry with his sister, and yelled!”
Open Ended Questioning:
Open-ended question are used to encourage a full, meaningful
answer using the learner’s own knowledge. Open-ended questions typically begin with words such as “Why” and “How”, or phrases such as “Tell me about…”. Bellow are some examples of questions that EEMIO might ask the learner.

• “Have you ever felt scared?”
• “I sometimes get scared when I hear thunder. What makes you scared?”
• “Hello! How do you feel today!?”

EEMIO Game Platform

When EEMIO is purchased, the toy comes packaged with a CD that contains the EEMIO Desktop Game environment. This Java based application, is cross-platform, and requires an internet connection to retrieve assets that sit on an off site server. Hosted media is on off site servers, allowing remote access, which also allows EEMIO to have fresh content and activities to share with the learner, enabling it to stay fresh and avoid repetition.

Game Genre

The EEMIO game borrows from the following genres and game-play types:

• Computer simulation games
• Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG)

Game Mechanics

Emotional Meter Bar:The emotional meter is a visual representation of current emotional state of the EEMIO toy. The range of the meter spans from EEMIO’s current negative emotion (sad, scared, angry), which is dependant on the active mission, to EEMIO’s
happy emotional state.

There are several way for the learner to increase the positive emotion of the meter:

• Solving the mission fills up EEMIO’s emotion 100%
• Doing a good deed, such as giving another learner a tool from your collection.
• Communicating your problem with other learners, or non-playing characters, such as teachers, family, and social workers.

The consequence of a low meter reading is demonstrated by an increasing amount of sudden outbursts by the physical toy. These outburst are used as a method of signaling the learner to use “Tools” to help bring up stabilize EEMIO’s meter reading.

Map: The map enables the learner to travel between various locations, such as the school, the playground and their home. The learner is encouraged by non-playing characters to explore all the different locations, while trying to complete their mission.

Tools: As the learner explores the virtual world, they will meet several non-playing characters that will teach the learner skills than can help alleviate negative emotions. These tools can be used to increase EEMIO’s emotional meter reading, and can also be shared with newcomers in the virtual system that may not have the appropriate tools to help their own EEMIO dilemma.

Share: The EEMIO experience creates a conducive, safe, nonthreatening environment for communication to occur. The main goal however is for the dialog to effectively transfer outside of the virtual environment and into the learner “real life” environment.

To promote this, the virtual representation of learner’s family, teacher, and social workers have the option of adding direct communication alternatives, such as their e-mail or twitter account. If the learner feels as though they would like to share dialog, they can do so in the form of an Emotional E-Card.

Keeping in mind the target audience, most of which can not fully express themselves through text, we where faced with the challenge of creating a accessible method for productive communication to occur. The following screens explain the interaction process that the learner, must go through.

Learner to Learner Communication

Talk: The EEMIO Desktop Game is a multiuser environment which allows for multiple players to play the EEMIO game concurrently. All the learners are able see each other’s avatars on their screen in real-time. It also allows for the learners to communicate with each other via pre-scripted multiple choice dialog.

Keeping in mind the target audience (5-7 yr.), most of which can not fully express themselves through text, we were faced with the challenge of creating an accessible alternative for productive communication to occur. For this reason, dialog selections are based on both the learner’s interaction and learning goals.

Roles

Learner
The learner takes on a variety of roles while interacting with EEMIO. Their primary role, however is to assist EEMIO in developing skills that will help change negative emotions to positive ones.

During physical play the learner takes a participatory role, and is actively engaged in meaningful interaction guided by the EEMIO toy.

Once the learner moves into the desktop game environment, the learner takes on a the role of problem solver. During this interaction they will explore a virtual environment to gain needed skills and experience that will help them assist EEMIO, with his problem.

The EEMIO experience creates a conducive, safe, nonthreatening environment for communication to occur between the learners, the EEMIO toy, and embedded non-playing characters in the game system.

The presence of other learners concurrently in the multi-user environment offers the opportunity to share and talk about emotions amongst peers. More advanced learners are also able to share their acquired tools with newcomers to the system.

EEMIO Toy:
During play, EEMIO guides the learner through various activities that incorporate the learning goals. EEMIO’s goal in this role is to share activities and develop a bond which can promote empathy when EEMIO is confronted with a problem.

During game play,the EEMIO toy dispatches various auditory and haptic feedback as a result of actions taken in the desktop game environment. For example, if the learner helps another learner, EEMIO might say, “Wow, that was really nice of you to help him out!”

There are moment of deep distress during game play that affect EEMIO directly. When these moments occur in the game environment EEMIO will vibrate and get visibly upset. Moments such as these are used as cue points for the learner to use a tool that they have in their “tools” section.

Social Worker/Teacher (NPC):
A major part of the learning and interaction goal of the EEMIO game, is to learn and collect tools (skills) that allow the learner to help EEMIO feel better via non-playing characters (NPCs) embedded in the virtual world. The tools come in the shape of emotional adjustment techniques that the school social worker/teacher “teaches” the learner. These lessons take on a form of cut scenes.

Aside from parents, real-life social workers are actively involved in gauging the growth and success of the learner’s interaction with EEMIO. Social workers have access to analytical data which they can use to assess the learner’s progress, and the skills that the learner is currently using. Having this knowledge allows the facilitator to reflect on the lessons learned, and assist in transferring those lessons to the real world.

Family (NPC):
When the EEMIO toy is initially set up by a facilitator, they will be asked to enter in all the members of their family and extended family that may be important to the child. Once the learner logs in to their account they have the ability to interact with these members in the form of hugs.

As part of a formative assessment, the facilitator can get valuable data for analysis from this, such as numbers on who the learner calls on for emotional. This data could also prove beneficial to a therapist by giving them a better understanding the dynamics of the learner’s home. Each of the family member’s avatars will also include a direct method of communicating with that family member via e-mail. This interaction can also be found in the “Share” section.

The facilitator will input the e-mail address for any adults the child can share with. The facilitator can also allow an avatar but withhold the sending function so she can discuss what is sent with the parent in person, or prevent the child from communicating with abusive adults.

General NPCs:
The role of general (not family or facilitator) non-playing characters in the EEMIO game environment is to create opportunities for the learner to use and master their tools. By orchestrating mini problems in the learner’s session they can begin to develop situational awareness of other avatars in the environment, and are give the ability to share their skill with them.

Demonstrating how each emotion could derive from various different events, the learner is able to compare and contrast all the different story lines in the game, with events that may or may not have happened to them in real life.

Incentives

Change EEMIO’s Emotional State: The EEMIO toy interaction is dependant upon its current emotional state. If the child would like to have access to the “Playful “ mode, and EEMIO is in a presently in a “Distressed” state, then the learner will need to launch the desktop software environment and help EEMIO become playful again.

Unlock EEMIO Toy Activity: Each time the learner successfully completes a mission in the game, a new activity is unlocked on the EEMIO toy. This could consist of an activity such as a new story or song.

Awards: As the learner gains experience in the system, and begins their transition from newcomer to old-timer, they are awarded ribbons and badges. Providing awards is a motivational strategy to encourage active game play using the learning content.

• Ribbons are individual “game interaction awards” that have been given unique criteria. An example of an interaction would be to start conversations with at least ten other learners for five consecutive game sessions. This type of interaction would win the learner a “Social Superstar” ribbon.
• Badges are directly related to the learner’s mastery of each tool that they collect.

Once a learner is able to consistently detect emotional distress displayed by embedded NPCs and the EEMIO toy and apply the correct strategy or tool to alleviate their distress, the learner will gain mastery of a tool. This digital rewarding technique helps keep players engaged, and fosters community. Badges are valued by players as a new metric to prove mastery in a social setting. (Irwin, 2009) The average learner should be able to gain several badges in their first interaction with the game. As they become old-timers to the system, the badges are increasingly difficulty to attain.

Emotional Attachment: The EEMIO toy is consistently part of both the physical and computer-based activities. The reason for this, is to keep the toy and game from becoming separate entities. The EEMIO toy shares all the learner’s experiences, which encourages a bond between the learner and toy. This bond is what creates empathy for EEMIO in the learner, and develops intrinsic motivation to help EEMIO feel better.

New Clothes and Accessories: While exploring the desktop game, the learner may be awarded new items that they can use to customize their avatar, their family’s avatars, EEMIO’s avatar, or their home.

Pedagogical Design

Problem Based Learning: Each activity is framed around a problem that is affecting EEMIO’s emotional state. These problems are in the form of a story, which helps create context around the activity. “Because stories are essential to solving complex, everyday and professional problems, we believe that stories should form a basis for learning how to solve those problems.” (Jonassen
& Hernandez-Serrano, 2002, pg. 76)

Goal-based Scenarios: In each mission, that is situated in the desktop game environment, the learner becomes an active participant, by taking part in a “learning by doing” architecture. (Schank et al., 1993) This immersion requires the leaner to take part in real-world activities.

Multimedia Learning: In both the physical and digital interfaces, there are spoken words coupled with a visual image or picture providing information and feedback for the learner. In order to avoid unnecessary cognitive load and the split attention effect, we provide the option for the learner to turn subtitles on or off. (Mayer, 2005)

Considering the age of our target audience the primary delivery method is via auditory or pictorial means because many of them will not be able to read text. Since the learner will always be using this with an adult, the text can help the adult facilitator review what happened and prompt the child if necessary.

Community of Practice: The desktop environment of the EEMIO experience is comprised of learners that are either newcomers or old timers to the system (Vygotsky, 1978). Newcomers explore the environment in hopes of building up tools though experience, which helps to increasing their EEMIO toy’s emotional level. Old-timers, who have already gained many tools through experience, have the added ability to share their knowledge with newcomers, and as a result be rewarded through various incentives.

Interaction Design

Iconic Based Menu System (Desktop): Since the learners reading ability could span from competent reader, to very low reading ability, the main menu navigational elements are couple with symbolic representations. Learners lacking reading skills can use the illustrated representation to aid their navigation through the system.

Color Coding (Toy): The EEMIO toy uses color coding as one of the methods for the learner to differentiate what emotion the toy is currently on (Tidwell, 2005). When EEMIO is on one of it’s four emotional sides, a large LED color coded light blinks above the literal facial expression. This color coding also allows the user to avoid errors by providing a simple indicator of EEMIO’s emotional state in the event that the toy’s facial expression is not directly visible. (Lidwell et. al, 2003)

Cognitive Design

Meaningful Effects: In order to retain information, a learner must pay attention and process the information so that it can be stored in long-term memory. If information is put in the context of a story or connected to something a learner already knows, it is easier to learn and remember. (Driscoll, 2005)

Practice Effects: Practicing or rehearsing improves retention especially when it is distributed practice. By distributing practices the learner associates the material with many different contexts rather than the one context afforded by practice in a single instance.

Friendly Voice (informal): According to Mayer, “the personalization and voice principles are consistent with the idea that social cues prime a conversational stance in the learner, in which the learner sees the instructor as a conversational partner.” (Mayer, 2005 pg 277)

Repetition: The EEMIO game environment integrates the use of a badge system to demonstrate mastery of a skill. Mastery is accomplished by correctly identifying situations which require the use of a tool. The badge metaphor also serves as an intrinsic motivator for the learners to revisit acquired skills throughout their gaming sessions.

Emotional Design

Avatar and Environmental Customization: Personalizing the learner’s interaction by offering various customization options, allows the learner to have a sense of ownership within the system.

Narrative Design

Plot Based Narrative: A major part of EEMIO’s game play, is for the learner to perform the actions directed by the toy. This enables the learner to advance in the game and increase the toy’s library of possible interactions. Each mission is comprised of a backstory that is supplied by the EEMIO toy before each mission. The purpose of the backstory is to provide dramatic context for the action and interaction that is about to take place in the game (Crawford, 2003). Stories are the “means [by] which human beings give meaning to their experience of temporality and personal actions” (Polkinghorne, 1988, p. 11). By integrating storytelling, and using the narrative from of framing, less cognitive effort is required by the learner (Bruner, 1990).

Cut Scenes: Several of the non-playing characters (NPCs) scattered throughout the game environment help to further the story line and to establish tone of the game. The type of information provided to the learner ranges from the disbursement of tools, to information dumps that provide key information by NPCs. (Dickey, 2005)

Usability Testing

At all times of engagement, EEMIO stores time stamped data relevant to both physical (toy) and computer-based game play session. Interactions such as; which types of activities have been played, average interactions per minute, and activity usage history will be made available to the facilitator via graphical representations. By analyzing this data, the facilitator and designer, will be able to make gauge weather a learner is interested in an activity, is having difficulty locating an activity, or continually drops off a specific activity.

Formative Educational Evaluation

Embedded Assessments: Both the toy and the game will have embedded assessments. These assessments take the form of meaningful questioning that is activated during game play. For example, each time the EEMIO toy states a new emotional crisis, he follows up with “How do you think I feel?” The learner is then instructed to turn EEMIO to the respective side that correlates to what the learner believes to be EEMIO’s emotion, based on the description of the event.

Observational Assessments: EEMIO is intended to be used in the presence of a facilitator, preferably a social worker or counselor. By observing the child’s interactions with EEMIO, the facilitator will gain information about the child’s emotional state, interaction methods, coping mechanisms and family situation. Children often feel less intimidated by a toy or inanimate object than by an adult, especially when it comes to discussing emotions and other personal topics.

referances

Britez, Loren. Personal INTERVIEW. 5 November 2009.

Bruner, J. (1990), Acts of meaning, Cambridge: Harvard University Press,

Crawford, C. (2003). Chris Crawford on game design. Indianapolis, IN: New Riders Publishing.

Dickey, Michele (2005). Engaging By Design: How Engagement Strategies in Popular Computer and Video Games Can Inform Instructional Design. ETR&D, Vol. 53, No. 2, 2005, pp. 67–83

Driscoll, M. (2005). Psychology of Learning for Instruction (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon. (pp. 77-91)

Irwin, Mary Jane, (2009) Unlocking Achievements: Rewarding Skill With Player Incentives. Gamasutra. Retrieved from http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3976/unlocking_achievements_rewarding_.php

Jonassen, David H., Hernandez-Serrano, Julian (2002) Case-based reasoning and instructional design: Using Stories to Support Problem Solving. Educational
Technology, Research and Development. Research Library Vol 50, No 2.

Lidwell, W., Holden, K., Butler, J. (2003 Universal Principles of Design. Rockport Publishers.

Mayer, R.E. (Ed.) (2005). Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning. New York: Cambridge.

Polkinghorne, D. (1988). Narrative knowing and the human sciences. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Schank, R.C., Fano, A., Bell, B., & Jona, M. (1993). The design of goal-based scenarios. The Joumal of the Learning Sciences, 3(4), 305-346.

Tidwell, Jennifer (2005) Designing Interfaces. O’Reilly Media

Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

There are several techniques that museums are using for this sort of interaction. They include Location Aware handhelds that estimate the visitors location via GPS, RFID and WiFi. With the surge of smart phones in the past couple of years, and especially with the iPhone 3Gs that comes embedded with a compass, this sort of interaction will become more and more available.

“Customer resistance, capital cost and reliability have all been taken care of. The age of pervasive computing has finally arrived” – Alex Pentland MIT

Through the use of this technology, museums are able to offer visitors multiple modalities of information regarding the art. They also could enable visitors to view images that are not readily available for public viewing, or might not be visible to the naked eye. Games such a scavenger hunts also lend itself well to this medium, since it affords mobility. Once technology allows for more precise location approximations, these interactions will get even more immersive.

Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create and share Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also learning to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively. – MIT

I decided to give myself a small project to test a wide variety of functionality. Not knowing the versatility of Scratch, i decided to create a quick proof of concept and create some very basic game interactions (Left, Right, Jump, and Collision detection). Once i made myself at home, and started getting acquainted with the interface, i just started exploring. The first thing i noticed was there was some vocabulary changes that would be better understood by a younger audience. For example, what is typcally called “Loop” is called “Forever”.

The language offers all the main syntax that makes up just about all programming languages, such as loops, conditionals, and variety of properties, along with several other options. Here is my proof of concept (http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/abritez/783281). It’s nothing fancy, but enough to make it clear to me that any person with a bit of prior programing knowledge could get something rolling rather quickly.

The real question is, can a kid with “no” prior knowledge learn on this platform. I am pretty convinced that some kids could get some sort of interaction happening with Scratch after some exploration, trial and error, and bit of guidance. As i mentioned before, the programing language is visual, and includes scaffolding for the children in the form of interlocking shapes which are color coded and of different shapes. Most children understand how puzzles work and can identify patterns at a pretty young age, so this is a great way of taking the scariness out of programing. Scratch substitutes lines of code with color coded blocks of functionality. Although there is quite a bit of concepts that the learner would need to get acquainted with, it is definitely a great way to get kids excited about making game, instead of just playing them, which makes there experience with Scratch and programming more meaningful.

A couple other very important features that Scratch possesses are:
• All source code is open, so students could open up each others code and learn
• Students could not only make an interaction, but they could easily share the interaction with others.

For more information on Scratch check out some of the research (http://info.scratch.mit.edu/Research)

Would love to hear what others think about this program.