*Poster for TEI 2014 conference. February 2014, Munich, Germany. The Web has changed how we interact with the World’s information and knowledge. As a result there have been several changes to the education sector, especially in online distance learning. Nevertheless, most of the e-Learning activities struggle to break the GUI paradigm. The HCI community has focused on the use of Tangible User Interfaces (TUI) for pedagogic purposes thus producing some evidence of the potential that embodied cognition might bring to constructivist learning. New education movements such as the Edupunk movement argue for an empowerment of independent learners, following the constructivist perspective where learners have to have a more active role by experimenting and discovering concepts on their own. However, we think that accessing TUI systems via Web can lead to pedagogic activities that break the GUI paradigm in education on the Web

1. Developing Downloadable TUIs for
Online Pedagogic Activities
Javier Pereda, j.pereda@soton.ac.uk
Leif Isaksen, l.isaksen@soton.ac.uk
University of Southampton
Web Science DTC
Thanks to the Web, there have been several
changes to the education sector, especially in
online distance learning. Nevertheless, most
of the e-Learning activities struggle to break
the GUI paradigm.
New education movements argue for an
empowerment of independent learners, where
they have to have a more active role by
experimenting and discovering concepts on
their own. Based on this, we think that
accessing TUI systems via Web can lead to
pedagogic activities that break the GUI
paradigm in education on the Web.
TUIs may ultimately have the potential to
attract a wider spectrum of users [1] thus
providing digital inclusion by using everyday,
non-digital objects that allow users to perform
Dice
Introduction
computational transactions [2]. Added to this,
TUIs can help offload mental effort when
using an interactive system [2] letting users
focus on the activity instead of the system
itself.
From an educational perspective, it has been
previously proposed that learning is an active
process where the construction of meaning
can be produced through activities that
engage both mind and body [3]. Added to this,
Constructivism calls for an active involvement
of the learner where he or she is required to
interact with the world and manipulate it to
be able to reach their own conclusions [4]. The
Edupunk movement emphasise that the
learner must be an owner and producer of
their own knowledge [5, 6].
Token
Design
Having a museum related pedagogic
activity in mind in this paper we
introduce three TUIs. The user can
explore combinations of designs
depicting diverse ancient cultures and
natural elements to retrieve information
about a ‘deity’ relevant to such cultures
as a result. The cultures chosen for this
example were Aztec, Greek, and
Egyptian. Three methods of interaction
were used: dice, tokens and disc.
The exploration was
Exploration
based on linking the
culture and an element
that represents a deity.
The interfaces explored
three cultures: Aztec,
Egyptian and Greek, and six elements were
represented: fire, wind, water, music, death,
and king of gods or god of gods.
Disc
Three Interfaces
Comparative Study
The evaluation was carried
out with a sample of 24
adults from different
digital skill levels. The
interfaces were tested in a
randomized sequence. For
each interface, the user was
asked to find a specific combination of ‘element’
and ‘culture’. This was performed three times per
interface. Participant’s completion time was
measured for each of the tasks. After performing
the tasks, participants were offered the chance to
play and explore freely the interface if desired.
5 sec
12 sec
Task completion
time
6 sec
84 pts
69 pts
System Usability
Scale scores
83 pts
Implementation
Free play
time
Conclusion
The system developed has the advantage that it
can be applied in a wide variety of topics, but its
main potential lies in the promotion of a
constructivist distance-learning environment.
This research focused on the ways information
can be explored via TUIs as independent learners
and provides meaningful results as a first
approach to the topic, pointing out what users
were looking for when presented with these
types of interfaces. The learning curve in the
learning process of participants seems to
have been short while engaging with the
information provided. This could prove to be
beneficial in different groups (e.g. children,
elderly) and in the engagement with
different sets of information.
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