Organizers:
Henrik Hautop Lund (Danish Technical University, Denmark),
Stine Liv Johansen (Danish School of Education at University of Aarhus, Denmark),
Helle Karoff (Danish School of Education at University of Aarhus, Denmark)

Short Description:
In this workshop we will investigate the following question: How can technology initiate and facilitate play? Firstly by trying to put play into a modern context by exploring how technology arising from different types of technology may contribute to the design of play. The workshop will explore different approaches to facilitating and initiating physical play in order to develop a shared understanding of play, and also for what is working and what is not. The main outcome for the workshop will be a shared idea about play as a starting point for developing interaction for children. Based upon a definition of play grown from some of the most important thinkers’ descriptions of play, we dare defending play in short form as “play is actions which we undertake to create experiences and delight.” Secondly to reflect upon how the understanding of play forces and play dynamics may allow us to come closer to understanding why some play media designs in the form of intelligent hardware and software to create play and playful experiences may be important to study and understand how to design for play.

Link: http://sites.google.com/site/playandtechnology/

Organizers:
D. van Dijk (Waag Society, Netherlands),
A. Lubsen (Citilab-Corneliá, Spain),
A. Schaub (Fablab, Netherlands)

Short Description:
Create interactive prototypes yourself! The workshop Designing Tangibles for Children aims to illustrate the role of prototyping as a strong design methodology. The workshop will bring together experts in the field of design and education for children in a hands-on design session, assisted by a team of (interaction) designers. Prototyping as integral part of the design process helps designers, researchers and other experts to develop new perspectives on a subject. Prototyping stimulates creativity and triggers new research questions. Context of the workshop is the importance of physical play in the development of children. Participants will work in interdisciplinary teams and produce a number of tangible, interactive prototypes geared at children, aged 6 to 8.

Link: http://workshopidc.wordpress.com/

Organizers:
Juan Pablo Hourcade (University of Iowa, USA),
Heidi Schelhowe (University of Bremen, Germany)

Short Description:
The digital divide between those who have - or not -access to digital technologies still exists, especially in poor countries. And beyond access, even wealthier countries witness a continuing - if not growing - gap between those who 'know' how to use digital technologies at their advantage, and those who don't. And, to complicate matters, in today's fast changing world the viable know-how is not always where one thinks! In nearly all nations "old-timers" (caring parents, educators, schools) are puzzling over what youngsters are doing on-line, with their mobile devices, or on their computers. They wonder which software they use, what content they access, in which environments. It becomes crucial to explore all kinds of digital divides that are arising among youth. Focusing on a target population that spans from children to teenagers, we will explore the challenges and possibilities of digital technologies for marginalized youngsters. Of particular interest to our reflection is identifying, nurturing and enhancing the unique talents of marginalized youth. This workshop is the third of its kind at IDC. It was agreed among participants of the last two years that this focus should continue as an IDC workshop in future. The workshop aims at bringing together technologists, empirical researchers, designers, educators, psychologists, sociologists, and decision-makers in any domain involving young people.

Link: http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~hourcade/idc2010-myw/

Organizers:
Franca Garzotto (Politecnico di Milano, Italy)
Paolo Paolini (Politecnico di Milano, Italy & University of Italian Switzerland, Switzerland)
Amalia Sabiescu (University of Italian Switzerland, Switzerland)

Short Description:
This one-day IDC 2010 workshop will bring together researchers from a wide spectrum of disciplines and research communities (e-learning, HCI, IDC, interactive storytelling, e-gaming) who share a common interest in understanding the challenges of interactive storytelling for children. Our goal is to explore the design, development, and evaluation of interactive storytelling for this target group from different perspectives, in relationship to:

• the different technologies and interaction paradigms (including web based systems,artificial intelligence environments, tangibles, mobiles, virtual reality and immersive spaces) for story authoring and consumption
• the different theoretical and methodological approaches
• the different profiles of children (e.g., w.r.t. age, needs, ...)
• the different contexts of use (e.g., school, home, museums, therapeutic settings);
• the different roles of children in relationships of interactive stories (authors, consumers, or technology designers)
• the benefits we expect storytelling to provide to different targets
• the conditions for widespread, long term sustainable adoption of interactive storytelling technology and applications in real contexts.

Link: http://hoc.elet.polimi.it/idc/2010/

ACM / SIGCHI