Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 12
Play Platforms for Children's Creativity
Cristina Sylla , Clara Coutinho , and Pedro Branco
12.1
Introduction
Children's imagination and their natural need for exploration and discovery can be
stimulated when they are in contact with rich contexts and environments (Van
Scoter et al.
2001
; Van Scoter
2008
); this inherent tendency offers an enormous
opportunity for researchers and designers to develop tools that unleash children's
potential, involving them in creating meaningful projects (Papert
1993
). Research
on this fi eld has highlighted that well-design technological tools for children need
to be compelling, support exploration, encourage creativity, develop curiosity and
promote interaction and collaboration with peers while being simple and intuitive to
use (Plowman et al.
2012
; Resnick et al.
2005
; Resnick and Silverman
2005
).
However, despite a move from virtual to physical as the focus of digital interac-
tion (Ishii and Ullmer
1997
), which is leading to a diversifi cation of interaction
contexts, objects and applications, opening new possibilities for the creation of
innovative interactive artefacts, discussions about the use of technology for young
children have disclosed that technology often fails to exploit the affordances of the
medium, by merely transposing traditional materials to the corresponding electronic
format (Plowman et al.
2012
).
Aiming at developing an authoring and sharing tool for children, which empow-
ers them to collaboratively create interactive content and share it with others, this
study describes the design and development of an interface for tangible narrative
