In an effort to better understand the learning potential of a tangible interface, we conducted a comparison study between a tangible and a traditional graphical user interface for teaching preschoolers (In Portugal, children enter preschool at the age of three and they attend it till entering school, normally at the age of six) about good oral hygiene. The study was carried with two groups of children aged 4 to 5 years. Questionnaires to parents, children's drawings, and interviews were used for data collection and analysis and revealed important indicators about children's change of attitude, involvement, and preferences for the interfaces. The questionnaires showed a remarkable change of attitude toward tooth brushing in the children that interacted with the tangible interface; particularly children's motivation increased significantly. Children's drawings were used to assess their degree of involvement with the interfaces. The drawings from the children that interacted with the tangible interface were very complete and detailed suggesting that the children felt actively involved with the experience. The results suggest that the tangible interface was capable of promoting a stronger and long-lasting involvement having a greater potential to engage children, therefore potentially promoting learning. Evaluation through drawing seems to be a promising method to work with preliterate children; however, it is advisable to use it together with other methods.

This paper presents a study of the use of a digital manipulative developed to promote creative narrative construction and storytelling. The study was carried with 27 groups of preschoolers, of five years of age, who interacted with the digital manipulative during free-play time, during a period of six months. The study sought to access aspects of children's embodiment of the narratives, and how they shaped the creation of stories. We observed that by using the digital manipulative, children's narrative construction occurred in two levels, as children shared the stage, (controlling the characters, the location, the props, and the nature elements) and simultaneously performed on this stage. The sharing of the input devices (blocks) gave children equal control of the performance and orchestration of the story, while promoting and supporting peer collaboration. We conclude that the digital manipulative enables the performance of what we call embodied stage-narratives, promoting children's imagination and creative thinking, as well as fostering early literacy skills and metalinguistic awareness.

This paper presents and discusses the preliminary findings of a research focusing on the design and use of Mobeybou, a digital manipulative aimed at promoting the collaborative creation of multicultural and cross-cultural stories among young children. We frame the research in the wider discussion of the 21st century skills and competencies, and present the digital manipulative as the product of a participatory design methodology. We discuss narratology, multiculturalism, embodiment and collaboration as the cornerstone ideas underpinning the design of Mobeybou. We also show how storytelling is envisioned as implying the creative use of the multicultural and multimodal information that is offered to users in the form of constraints and openended options. A pilot study, carried out with twelve 8-yearold children, has validated these design options and offered interesting insights for its further development. Here, we present the interface and discuss the feedback provided in the user study. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing~Human computer interaction (HCI) • Human-centered computing~User studies • Human-centered computing~Interaction devices • Human-centered computing~Interactive systems and tools • Human-centered computing~User interface toolkits • Human-centered computing~Interaction design process and methods

a b s t r a c tResearch has identified a need for design of interactive products for children, as well as long-term studies that investigate the effects of its use in the classroom environment. Following the design and development of a digital manipulative system for storytelling, which involved preschool children and teachers, the investigation presented here reports findings from a four-month evaluation of the system that was carried in a Portuguese preschool involving 24 pairs of children. During the four months the researchers were able to observe children's interaction with the digital manipulative system that was not biased by the novelty of the system or by time constrains. The gathered data showed that children used the digital manipulative system to create stories and play language games, which are activities that foster the development of oral language and emergent literacy, and are formally targeted in the preschool curriculum. The system provided challenge and adventure, motivating children to collaboratively explore and create narratives, empowering each child to actively participate in the task.

In this paper, we present results of two user studies that compared the performance of touch-based and pen-based gesture input on capacitive touchscreens for both adult and 8-11 years old child users. Results showed that inputting gestures with pen was significantly faster and more accurate than touch for adult users. However, no significant effect of input method was observed on performance for child users. Similarly, user experience evaluation showed that a large number of adult users favoured one technique over the other and/or found a technique more comfortable to use than the other, while child users were mostly neutral. This trend, however, was not statistically significant.