Despite the increasing interest in embodied interaction for learning, research has not yet provided strong proof of its advantages with respect to other types of interaction, or with respect to other types of pedagogical approaches. In this paper we present two studies aimed at comparing how a collaborative interactive experience based on two different interaction paradigms -one based on Full-Body Interaction and the other on Desktop computer interaction-may impact the socio-affective aspects of collaboration as part of a learning process in children.Our results show that Full-Body Interaction had a highly significant impact on how the participating children perceived collaboration in small groups and on how they felt about the other children in the group. This indicates that Full-Body Interaction may be beneficial for supporting the construction of a positive social space for collaborative learning, given its potential to enable the use of embodied resources, which are fundamental for social communication and social cognition.

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