Supporting children's collaboration across handheld computers

ABSTRACT

This paper describes the use of multiple interconnected handheld devices to support children's collocated collaboration. Handhelds are a relatively inexpensive, highly mobile platform, making them potentially useful in educational settings [3]. Two shortcomings of students' use of handhelds are: 1) achieving the benefits of collaborative learning may be difficult given the personal nature of these devices, and 2) the small size of a PDA constrains the amount of information that can be meaningfully displayed. We address these shortcomings by utilizing multiple devices to form a larger surface that can display more information than any individual handheld. This interaction technique encourages collaboration and helps engage all students in the activity. To explore this style of collaboration, we extended an educational application with a shared screen information view that we call WHAT-IF¹.

REFERENCES

• 1: Arman Danesh , Kori Inkpen , Felix Lau , Keith Shu , Kellogg Booth, GeneyTM: designing a collaborative activity for the palmTM handheld computer, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.388-395, March 2001, Seattle, Washington, United States [doi>10.1145/365024.365303]
• 2: Allison Druin, The design of children's technology, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., San Francisco, CA, 1998
• 3: Inkpen, K. M., Designing handheld technologies for kids. Personal Technologies, 1999. 3(1&2): p. 81-89.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.3 COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION
      K.3.1 Computer Uses in Education
          Subjects: Collaborative learning

Additional Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.1 PROCESSOR ARCHITECTURES
      C.1.4 Parallel Architectures
          Subjects: Mobile processors

  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.3 Group and Organization Interfaces
          Subjects: Computer-supported cooperative work

General Terms:
Algorithms, Design

Keywords:
CSCL, CSCW, PDA, children, collaboration, education, genetics, handheld computers, information design, palm