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cases, the researchers decided that the scale and nature of the problems identified
were not suitable for further research studies under their areas of expertise (human
computer interaction, tangible computing). The social issues identified by the Ullens
children, such as sanitation and corruption, are not areas where HCI research can
offer solutions without a larger team involving social scientists. The personal access
issues identified by the Rudrayanee students are deeply rooted in a digital access
divide not only between urban and more rural lifestyles but also between genders.
Again, the researchers did not think that they could impact these issues through their
HCI research. However, the children in both groups were exposed to the creative
design process and the idea of using new forms of technology to mediate social and
personal issues.
Moving from the experience of the children to the experience of the researchers
and the catalytic effect the workshop had on their work we can conclude that the
workshops have had the desired impact as all have sparked additional work mostly in
the form of additional workshops and explorations. As a result of the workshop the
Parapara animation software has come to be regarded as an educational tool rather
than simply a technology showcase and has drawn keen interest from educators
around the world with follow up workshops being conducted in London, Singapore,
and Tokyo. Parapara is currently undergoing further development to support draw-
ing styles and narrative evolutions discovered during the workshop. Similarly, the
Puppets Duets workshop was followed by a workshop in Portugal to further explore
the impact of socio-economic and cultural differences on children understanding and
exploration of the game resulting in an academic publication (Chisik et al.
2013
) and
continued development efforts. The Oriboo workshop was also followed by Euro-
pean workshops conducted in Stockholm and Seville yielding wealth of data yet to
be analysed and acted upon. Also, a video was published in the HRI 2013 confer-
ence (Márquez Segura et al.
2013b
) and the material of the workshop was used to
illustrate the researchers' design approach to body games in a video preview of a
paper presented at CHI 2013 (Márquez Segura et al.
2013a
). A revised version of
t-words incorporating insights gleaned from the Nepal workshop was showcased in
the Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2013) conference (Sylla et al.
2013
)
and will serve as the basis for field trials to be conducted in Portugal. Finally, Alissa
Antle of the Creative Design workshop continued her travels in Nepal and conducted
an interview and brainstorming session with a councilor working at Nepal House
Society in the city of Pokahara. Together, they identified a value proposition around
using simple biofeedback-based tablet games to help teachers and councilors teach
children living in poverty self-regulation
2
.
2
More details on this project can be found at http://www.antle.iat.sfu.ca/TabletGames.
