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RFID interactive tabletop application with tangible objects: exploratory study to observe young children’ behaviors

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Abstract

Numerous academic and industrial studies and developments concerning interactive tabletops are paving the way for new educational applications. We have developed an interactive tabletop application equipped with RFID technology. This tabletop, called TangiSense, is based on a multi-agent system that allows users to associate information with behaviors to manipulate tangible objects. The application involves the recognition of basic colors. With the application, children are required to manipulate tangible objects. Their task involves recognizing objects that have “lost” their dominant color and placing these objects in appropriate colored areas. A tangible magician object automatically analyzes the filled zones and provides children and their teacher with virtual and vocal feedback. This application has been evaluated in a field study with children 3–5 years of age. The initial results are promising and show that such an application can support interaction and collaboration, and subsequently educational situations, among young children.

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Notes

  1. http://www.rfidees.fr/.

  2. http://www.education.gouv.fr/cid33/la-presentation-des-programmes-a-l-ecole-maternelle.html.

  3. For this “in-the-field” experiment, we will not consider the children’s performance, since they are allowed to search for the right result alone or with the help of their teacher. Instead, only children’s behaviors were studied to determine whether an interactive game system can foster interaction and collaboration and therefore, encourage learning situations.

  4. Expected frequency is obtained by calculating the product of the corresponding marginal frequencies of value a (variable A) and b (variable B) for each cell of a contingency table. The expected frequency is defined as the product-frequency. In independent cases, the observed frequency is equal to the expected frequency. For each cell, the association rate is obtained by calculating the difference between the observed frequency and the expected frequency. This difference is then divided by the expected frequency. For full theoretical demonstrations, see Le Roux and Rouanet [45] or Corroyer and Wolff [18].

  5. The speakers were removed due to space constraints. The table needed to be integrated into the classroom with minimal movement of furniture and objects.

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Acknowledgments

This research was partially financed by the French Ministry of Education, Research and Technology, the Nord/Pas-de-Calais Region, the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), the FEDER program, the International Campus on Safety and Intermodality in Transportation (the Plaiimob project), and the French National Research Agency (ANR TTT and IMAGIT projects, financial IMAGIT support: ANR-10-CORD-017). The authors would like to thank the partners with whom we collaborated on the TTT and IMAGIT projects: LIG, RFIdées, and the CEA. We would also like to thank the Inspector of Education, Mrs. Thery, Mrs. Petit, Mrs. Grechez, and Miss Dudkowiak for their assistance given for the development and evaluation of the application, and also the parents and all of the children at the school in Caullery (F-59191).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ENI Brest, UMR 6285, Lab-STICC, 29200, Brest, France

    Sébastien Kubicki

  2. Université Paris Descartes, 75270, Paris Cedex 06, France

    Marion Wolff

  3. ESTIA/PEPSS, 64210, Bidart, France

    Marion Wolff

  4. UVHC, LAMIH, 59313, Valenciennes, France

    Sophie Lepreux & Christophe Kolski

  5. CNRS, UMR 8201, 59313, Valenciennes, France

    Sophie Lepreux & Christophe Kolski

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  1. Sébastien Kubicki
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Correspondence to Sébastien Kubicki.

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Kubicki, S., Wolff, M., Lepreux, S. et al. RFID interactive tabletop application with tangible objects: exploratory study to observe young children’ behaviors. Pers Ubiquit Comput 19, 1259–1274 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-015-0891-7

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