TagTiles: optimal challenge in educational electronics

ABSTRACT

In this paper we describe TagTiles, a tangible electronic board game for educational purposes. It was designed to be suitable for investigating the balance between challenge and control by providing fine-grained and wide ranged difficulty levels. TagTiles can address a range of skills including fine motor skills, cognitive and social skills. Evaluation of the game showed that the children appreciated the game and that most of them were offered a challenge that was appropriate for their skill level.

REFERENCES

• 1: Fontijn, W. F. J. and Mendels, P. (2005). StoryToy the Interactive Storytelling Toy, Proceedings of PerGames workshop, Int. Conference on Pervasive Computing, Munich, Germany, 11 May 2005, pp. 37--42.
• 2: Goswami, U. (2004). Annual review Neuroscience and education. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 74, 1--14 2004, The British Psychological Society.
• 3: Thomas W. Malone, Heuristics for designing enjoyable user interfaces: Lessons from computer games, Proceedings of the 1982 conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.63-68, March 15-17, 1982, Gaithersburg, Maryland, United States [doi>10.1145/800049.801756]
• 4: O'Malley, C. and Stanton-Fraser, D. (2004). Literature review in learning with tangible technologies. Nesta FutureLab Series, report 12.
• 5: Ryan, R. M. (1982). Intrinsic Motivation Inventory: http://www.psych.rochester.edu/SDT/measures/intrins.html. Accessed on 6-Dec-2006.
• 6: Vockell, E. L. (1994). Educational research (2nd edition). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)

Keywords:
educational game, game heuristics, tangible interface