A Tangible, Story-Construction Process Employing Spatial, Computational-Thinking

Abstract

The outcome of a multidisciplinary and iterative process, CyberPLAYce is a tangible, interactive, cyber-physical learning tool for children supporting computational thinking and, particularly, playful storytelling. CyberPLAYce finds inspiration in the concept of child-computer interaction, where meaning is constructed through spatially reconfiguring the physical environment. The novel aspect of CyberPLAYce is its extension of cyber-learning to the dimension of space where children construct meaning at a larger physical scale. This paper outlines the motivations for CyberPLAYce, focuses on the full arc of design and evaluation activities concerning computational thinking (CT) practices that engaged 8-12-year-old storytellers, and concludes with a consideration of future work focusing on spatial thinking with CyberPLAYce. Results from our empirical study suggest that cyber-physical play afforded by CyberPLAYce scaffolds computational thinking, creating, and sharing in children. Particularly for IDC researchers in the educational domain, CyberPLAYce represents a Research-through-design exemplar supporting children's enjoyment of learning and meaning-construction.