Designing intelligent games adapting to children’s playing maturity
Journal Title: EAI Endorsed Transactions on Creative Technologies - Year 2017, Vol 4, Issue 12
Abstract
Play is a voluntary activity in which individuals involve for pleasure. It is very important for children because through playing they learn to explore, develop and master physical and social skills. Play development is part of the child’s growth and maturation process since birth. As such, it is widely used in the context of Occupational Therapy (OT). Occupational therapists use activity analysis to shape play activities for therapeutic use and promote an environment where the child can approach various activities while playing. This paper builds on knowledge stemming from the processes and theories used in OT and activity analysis to present the design, implementation and deployment of a new version of the popular farm game as deployed within an Ambient Intelligence (AmI) simulation space. Within this space, an augmented interactive table and a three-dimensional avatar are employed to extend the purpose and objectives of the game, thus also expanding its applicability to the age group of preschool children from 3 to 6 years old. More importantly, through the environment, the game monitors and follows the progress of each young player, adapts accordingly and provides important information regarding the abilities and skills of the child and their development over time. The developed game was evaluated through a small scale study with children of the aforementioned age groups, their parents, and child care professionals. The outcomes of the evaluation were positive for all target groups and provided significant evidence regarding its potential to offer novel play experience to children, but also act as a valuable tool to child care professionals.
Authors and Affiliations
Emmanouil Zidianakis, Kalliopi Stratigi, Danai Ioannidi, Nikolaos Partarakis, Margherita Antona, Constantin Stephanidis
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP45873
- DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.4108/eai.3-10-2017.153154
- Views 315
- Downloads 0
Improvement of natural image search engines results by emotional filtering
With the Internet 2.0 era, managing user emotions is a problem that more and more actors are interested in. Historically, the first notions of emotion sharing were expressed and defined with emoticons. They allowed users...
Using Video Analysis and Machine Learning for Predicting Shot Success in Table Tennis
Coaching professional ball players has become more and more dicult and requires among other abilities also good tactical knowledge. This paper describes a program that can assist in tactical coaching for table tennis by...
A taxonomy of camera calibration and video projection correction methods
This paper provides a classification of calibration methods for cameras and projectors. From basic homography to complex geometric calibration methods, this paper aims at simplifying the choice of the methods to perform...
Rendering style and viewer’s perception of historic virtual architecture
The paper presents a study that investigated the effect of rendering style on users’ perception of 3D historic architectural environments. Three architectural styles were considered (Traditional Chinese, Gothic and Class...
Augmented Reality Meets Tangibility: A New Approach for Early Childhood Education
Augmented Reality (AR) has been recognised as one of the promising technologies for the gaming industry. In this study, the authors intend to apply AR technology to develop an interactive educational game. This paper pre...