Exploring the requirements of tabletop interfaces for education
by Ahmed Sulaiman Kharrufa, Patrick Olivier
International Journal of Learning Technology (IJLT), Vol. 5, No. 1, 2010

Abstract: With the advent of situated technologies for collaborative interaction that are based around digital tables, understanding the requirements of such digital tabletops in educational settings is a pressing concern. We conducted a study to observe how small-groups of higher education students collaborate in a pen-and-paper based group authoring and annotation task around a traditional table. The study was primarily concerned with issues that can have an impact on digital tabletop design, in particular, factors that contribute or hinder successful collaboration. By analysing the study within a distributed cognition framework we examined the task, the participants, and the tools. The analysis demonstrated that many factors contributed to effective collaboration around the table. These include: elements of participants' actions (conversations, body position, gaze, gestures, and stylised actions), spatial characteristics of the setting and participant behaviour (dividing the workspace, and the position and orientation of artefacts on the workspace), and the artefacts themselves. These characteristics have been used to establish a set of requirements that must be taken into account when designing a computer system to support digital tabletop interfaces for co-located synchronous collaboration in educational settings.

Online publication date: Mon, 15-Feb-2010

The full text of this article is only available to individual subscribers or to users at subscribing institutions.

 
Existing subscribers:
Go to Inderscience Online Journals to access the Full Text of this article.

Pay per view:
If you are not a subscriber and you just want to read the full contents of this article, buy online access here.

Complimentary Subscribers, Editors or Members of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Learning Technology (IJLT):
Login with your Inderscience username and password:

Username:        Password:          Forgotten your password?

Want to subscribe?
A subscription gives you complete access to all articles in the current issue, as well as to all articles in the previous three years (where applicable). See our Orders page to subscribe.

If you still need assistance, please email subs@inderscience.com