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Putting interference to work in the design of a whole-class learning activity

Published:03 June 2009Publication History

ABSTRACT

Who's Who is a single-display groupware application designed for use by an entire class of young students. Utilizing a shared display, each user controls the state of discrete display elements using a simple interface on a handheld device; however, the semantics of user operations are left unspecified and become the subjects of guided student discovery. Interference among users is leveraged in support of student learning about the scientific principle of "control of variables," in particular, the strategy of varying one independent variable at a time in multivariate systems. We present the experience of a third-grade classroom that used Who's Who, including both an account of learning outcomes and a description of the technology and social interactions that led to those outcomes.

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      cover image ACM Other conferences
      IDC '09: Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children
      June 2009
      347 pages
      ISBN:9781605583952
      DOI:10.1145/1551788

      Copyright © 2009 ACM

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      Publication History

      • Published: 3 June 2009

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