Programme Outline
Schedule
Day 1 (Friday)
Chair: Graeme Ritchie, University of Aberdeen
Day 2 (Saturday)
Chair: Annalu Waller, University of Dundee
Content of talks
StoryStation: intelligent feedback on story writing
(Judy Robertson)
Download presentation slides here (560kb).
StoryStation is an intelligent tutoring system which gives children
feedback as they write stories. The software is intended for children
aged ten years and above who have a basic competency in writing, but
would benefit from further help. The system provides assistance with
spelling, vocabulary usage and characterization techniques, as well
as tools such as word banks, a dictionary and a thesaurus. The main
pedagogical philosophy behind StoryStation is to identify and praise
the pupils' skills as a strategy to help them evaluate and appreciate
their own work.
Feedback is generated by comparing the skills a pupil has used in his
current story with skills he demonstrated in previous stories. If the
pupil has not used the system before, his mastery of individual
skills is compared to the norms derived from stories previously
written by other pupils of the same ability level. The feedback is
presented via animated characters.
This talk will describe the learner centred development process of
StoryStation, which involved extensive consultation with teachers and
pupils and present some initial findings from a field study in an
Edinburgh school.
The Laughing PC: Using Jokes in Software to Improve Children's Reading Comprehension
(Nicola Yuill)
Download presentation slides here (218kb).
In this presentation I will show two pieces of technology to support
language play and reading comprehension. First I describe 'Joke City', a
piece of software that supports children's discussion of ambiguous
language in jokes, which has been shown to improve their comprehension.
Associated with this software is a suite of literacy assessment tools
developed with Brighton & Hove local authority, some of which can be
self-administered by children and automatically scored, using a school
ICT suite. Second, I present WordCat, a piece of software we have
developed that helps children classify words simultaneously by their
spelling patterns and meanings. This makes use of SCOSS, a
generally-applicable software interface that helps children work
collaboratively.
"I want to tell you a joke. Are you ready?":an introduction to the STANDUP Project
(Annalu Waller)
Download presentation slides here (1.37mb).
The STANDUP project has developed interactive software which allows
children with complex communication needs (CCN) to generate novel
punning riddles. Typically developing children enjoy jokes and
riddles, offering an opportunity to practise language, conversation
and social interaction skills during childhood. CCN restricts the
opportunities to play with language, and this in turn restricts the
development of linguistic, communicative and social skills. Children
with CCN do access pre-stored humour using existing AAC
devices. However, independent access to novel language is
difficult. The STANDUP project has addressed this problem by designing
interactive software which allows a child to generate and tell novel
puns. This is done using information about concepts, words, their
relationships to each other, and additional details such as rhyme. The
user-interface is appropriate for users with physical and language
impairments, and allows different levels of complexity (of vocabulary,
joke structure, etc.). For example, at the simplest level, requesting
'any joke' might result in a joke such as: "What do you call a spicy
missile? -- A hot shot." At a more complex level, the user may start
by choosing a topic word. This talk discusses the role of humour in
the development of language skills, and introduces the audience to the
techniques employed to involve therapists, teachers and adults who use
aided communication in the design of a software language playground
for children with CCN.
Developing young people's storytelling skills through computer game design
(Judy Robertson)
Download presentation slides here (72kb).
In this talk I will discuss the development of young people's
interactive storytelling skills within a game creation environment. I
will describe the Gamemaker workshop series, in which young people
learn to use a computer game authoring tool called Neverwinter Nights
to develop interactive, branching stories. Given this new medium for
narrative expression, there is need to better understand the ways in
which the young people choose to express their story ideas, in order
to provide further support and scaffolding for their developing
narrative skills. In particular, I will discuss the plot themes they
chose to explore, and the ways in which they included interactivity in
the story, particularly through dialogue.
Joke generation by children with complex communication needs:
approaches to evaluation and findings in the STANDUP project
(Helen Pain)
Download presentation slides here (2.21mb).
The STANDUP project has developed interactive software which allows
children with complex communication needs (CCN) to generate novel
punning riddles. The project takes a user-centred design approach,
with formative evaluation throughout the design process with targeted
feedback provided by both Speech and Language Therapists familiar with
the children in the target population, and by adults who were
previously in this group. We discuss how this feedback influenced the
design process. We also consider methodological issues of this
approach for this group of users. We will describe the evaluation
study carried out in an independent special school, using a multiple
single-participant case study methodology with 9 children with
CCN. Initial piloting was carried out with 10 typically developing
children (TDC) to identify any problems with the study design. Further
evaluation is planned with TDC. Outcomes of the evaluation study will
be discussed.
Storytelling, play and learning in an augmented interactive environment
(Lisa Gjedde)
Download presentation slides here (1.3mb).
Story-based learning in an augmented interactive environment may offer
learners with multiple functional deficits a new way of learning and
communicating. By using storytelling and games it is possible to
create an interactive learning environment that enables
non-speaking learners to communicate their sense of identity in more
complex ways than is usually possible.
This talk will present some of the findings of a research and
development project that resulted in the design of a story-based
multimedia program about life in medieval times, "A Medieval
Tale". The program is augmented for severely challenged learners.
Based on cases and examples of use by this target group, there
will be a discussion of the potential of this type of program for
learning and communication.
Software Sessions
Each afternoon there will be a chance to interact with some of the following
programs.
StoryStation
(See Judy Robertson's talk on Friday.)
STANDUP
(See Annalu Waller's talk on Friday.)
Joke City
(See Nicola Yuill's talk on Friday.)
WordCat
(See Nicola Yuill's talk on Friday.)
A Medieval Tale
This is a multimedia narrative learning resource about medieval life,
with augmentative functions for learners with multiple functional
deficits. The program uses a narrative framework to address
learners of different abilities, making it an inclusive tool for
learning and experiencing the world of medieval fiction and
culture. The program is the first inclusive resource to span a wide
target group through the use of storytelling and interactive games in
an augmented computer environment.
(See also Lisa Gjedde's talk on Saturday.)
|