Tap&Play, Authoring pen and paper language activities

The Faculty of Informatics is pleased to announce a seminar given by Nadir Weibel

DATE: Monday, December 17th, 2012
PLACE: USI Università della Svizzera italiana, room SI-015, Informatics building (Via G. Buffi 13)
TIME: 11.00

ABSTRACT:
Hybrid paper-digital interfaces are a promising approach for supporting language activities. The familiarity of pen and paper makes it a particularly attractive media for many user groups, including young children. Digital pens enhance interaction with traditional paper content by playing and recording audio and recognizing handwriting and gestures. Currently, generating custom interactive paper documents involves some programming, limiting its use by many user groups (e.g., educators and families) who might especially benefit from application of hybrid paper digital interfaces in their practices. To address this need, we developed an end user Toolkit for Authoring Pen and Paper Language Activities (TAP & PLAY). The seminar focuses on the iterative development of the toolkit, its accessibility for novice non-technical users, and use in three different contexts for early language learning. We demonstrate and document the system's usability, generality, and utility for people who want to create and tailor their own custom interactive paper-based language activities.

BIO:
Dr. Nadir Weibel is a researcher and Lecturer at UC San Diego, where he investigates interaction across physical and digital information.
In his current work he is developing theory and methods, designing representations, implementing prototypes, and evaluating the effectiveness of interactive multimodal physical-digital systems such as pen-based and touch-based devices, depth-cameras, and mobile devices in order to understand the broader design space in which they are situated. He applies his research to critical populations such as healthcare and education.

HOSTS: Dr. Monica Landoni, Dr. Elisa Rubegni