Speakers : 

Jeff Rick

Title:

Two kids, one iPad

Abstract:

Multi-touch devices are starting to replace PCs as the dominant form of computing, particularly for children. As a result, serious efforts are underway to investigate and integrate tablets into the classroom. Most of these research efforts are software agnostic, assuming that the current software ecology is sufficient to realize and study the potential of the hardware. In such a research mode, it is natural to think of tablets as personal devices since the vast majority of software is built around that premise (e.g., tablets as ebooks). Can they be more? Can tablets support collaborative learning?

In this talk, I present a vision of tablets as tiny tabletops to support at-device collaboration. We developed the Proportion iPad app to realize and study this vision. In Proportion, two children work at one tablet to complete a series of increasingly difficult ratio / proportion problems. In our studies at German primary schools (grade 4, age 9-11), we used Proportion to study the role of collaboration and multi-touch. I will present both early empirical findings across conditions and a case study of a particularly successful group.

Bio:

Jochen "Jeff" Rick is an alumni of the College, graduating in 2007 (PhD CS, advisor Mark Guzdial, area Learning Sciences and Technology). From 2007 to 2010, he was a research fellow on the ShareIT project (led by Yvonne Rogers and Nicola Yuill) at the Department of Computing, The Open University, UK. There he investigated how interactive surfaces (tabletops, tablets, networked devices) can support collaboration. From 2010 to 2014, he was a founding member of the Department of Educational Technology, Saarland University, Germany. There his focus shifted to applying these technologies in Learning Sciences and bridging the gap between the HCI and Learning Sciences communities. In October, he moved back to Atlanta to start a company, badDesigner, to put this research into practice. Among other projects, he is planning a commercial distribution of Proportion.