skip to main content
10.1145/3078072.3091981acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PagesidcConference Proceedingsconference-collections
demonstration

Energetic Alpha, Playful Handwriting Practice for Children

Published: 27 June 2017 Publication History

Abstract

Young children are enamored by screens, especially iPads and mobile devices. Apple's App Store offers close to 100,000 products aimed at young children. Many of the apps are poor quality and include in-app advertising, deficient navigation, or overly gamified elements that compete with content. Extraneous animations, sound effects, and tangential games might be appealing to a child when activated but do not add to the child's understanding of the primary content because they disrupt the coherence of the learning experience and the child's engagement? (Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2015, p. 12). In an effort to create an educational but entertaining experience we developed an iPad application called Energetic Alpha. This interactive app teaches letter writing to children by using motion design and video content to educate and reward.

Supplementary Material

suppl.mov (idcde0109-file3.mov)
Supplemental video

References

[1]
Chiong, C., & DeLoache, J.S. 2013. Learning the ABCs: What kinds of picture book facilitate young children's learning? Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 13(2), 225--241. Retrieved May 3, 2017 from
[2]
Chiong C., Ree, J., Takeuchi, L., and Erickson, I. 2012. Comparing parent-child co-reading on print, basic and enhanced e-Book platforms. NY, NY: The Joan Ganz Cooney Center.
[3]
Druin A. 2005. What children can teach us: Developing digital libraries for children with children. The Library Quarterly, 75, 1: 20--41.
[4]
Graham, S. 2010. Want to Improve Children's Writing? Don't Neglect Their Handwriting. AMERICAN EDUCATOR, V76(N1), 49--55. s/graham.pdf
[5]
Campbell, C., & Haines, C. (2016). Becoming a media mentor: A guide for working with children and families. Chicago, IL.: American Library Association.
[6]
Hirsh-Pasek, K., Zosh, J., Golinkoff, R.M., Gray, J.H., Robb, M. B., and Kaufman, J. 2015. Putting education in "educational" apps: Lessons from the science of learning. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 16, 1: 3--31.
[7]
Richardson, S. O. 1997. The Montessori Preschool: Preparation for Writing and Reading. Annals of Dyslexia, 241--256. Retrieved May 5, 2017 from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23768103
[8]
Rinnert, G., Mooney, A. & Martens, M. Forthcoming, 2017. Energetic Alpha: Motion design as a cross disciplinary collaboration. Kinetic Emergence. (Eds.) R. Brian Stone and Leah Wahlin.
[9]
Sanders, E. 2008. Co-creation and the new landscapes of design. CoDesign: International Journal of CoCreation in Design and the Arts 4, 1: 5--18.
[10]
Seth, K. 2016. Developing children's media with diversity in mind. Retrieved March 30, 2017 from joanganzcooneycenter.org

Cited By

View all
  • (2022)Application of Gamification in Modern EducationHandbook of Research on Promoting Economic and Social Development Through Serious Games10.4018/978-1-7998-9732-3.ch004(60-75)Online publication date: 18-Mar-2022
  • (2021)TangiLetter: An Interactive Vocabulary System for Children to Learn Words About Wild AnimalsDistributed, Ambient and Pervasive Interactions10.1007/978-3-030-77015-0_21(287-298)Online publication date: 7-Jul-2021

Index Terms

  1. Energetic Alpha, Playful Handwriting Practice for Children

    Recommendations

    Comments

    Information & Contributors

    Information

    Published In

    cover image ACM Conferences
    IDC '17: Proceedings of the 2017 Conference on Interaction Design and Children
    June 2017
    808 pages
    ISBN:9781450349215
    DOI:10.1145/3078072
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

    Sponsors

    Publisher

    Association for Computing Machinery

    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published: 27 June 2017

    Check for updates

    Author Tags

    1. children
    2. design
    3. gamification
    4. handwriting
    5. learning
    6. motion design
    7. writing

    Qualifiers

    • Demonstration

    Funding Sources

    • College of Communication and Information Kent State

    Conference

    IDC '17
    Sponsor:
    IDC '17: Interaction Design and Children
    June 27 - 30, 2017
    California, Stanford, USA

    Acceptance Rates

    IDC '17 Paper Acceptance Rate 25 of 118 submissions, 21%;
    Overall Acceptance Rate 172 of 578 submissions, 30%

    Upcoming Conference

    IDC '25
    Interaction Design and Children
    June 23 - 26, 2025
    Reykjavik , Iceland

    Contributors

    Other Metrics

    Bibliometrics & Citations

    Bibliometrics

    Article Metrics

    • Downloads (Last 12 months)21
    • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)3
    Reflects downloads up to 10 Feb 2025

    Other Metrics

    Citations

    Cited By

    View all
    • (2022)Application of Gamification in Modern EducationHandbook of Research on Promoting Economic and Social Development Through Serious Games10.4018/978-1-7998-9732-3.ch004(60-75)Online publication date: 18-Mar-2022
    • (2021)TangiLetter: An Interactive Vocabulary System for Children to Learn Words About Wild AnimalsDistributed, Ambient and Pervasive Interactions10.1007/978-3-030-77015-0_21(287-298)Online publication date: 7-Jul-2021

    View Options

    Login options

    View options

    PDF

    View or Download as a PDF file.

    PDF

    eReader

    View online with eReader.

    eReader

    Figures

    Tables

    Media

    Share

    Share

    Share this Publication link

    Share on social media