Wearable stories for children: embodied learning through pretend and physical play

ABSTRACT

This paper introduces the Wearable Story, an interactive storytelling jacket designed for young children to facilitate their story listening experience while learning through play. The wearable medium supports embodied learning by providing experiences through which children are encouraged to use their bodies to learn. With the jacket, children can listen to stories while physically exploring their environment. Activated through touch and motion inputs, the Wearable Story invites children to engage in a series of physical and imaginative play activities such as jumping and pretending to swing over a castle as part of an interactive storyline. Through narrative elements such as setting and characters, children can use their imagination to participate in play activities. Learning through play combines constructivist and contextual learning theories that recognize the dynamic and interrelated interactions between the mind, body, and environment to promote active learning. The Wearable Story was implemented and a pilot study was conducted to explore the use of the jacket as an interface for interactive story listening experiences. The results of the study suggest multiple benefits of using the Wearable Story, including support for parents with facilitating and tracking their children’s interest in and engagement with stories.

KEYWORDS:

• Wearables
• interactive stories
• embodied learning
• pretend play
• physical activity
• early literacy

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Mary Beth and Jennifer at the Spark Family Enrichment Center. We would also like to thank Daiwei He and Reuben Rogak for their help in implementing the system and running the user study; the voice actors Carina Viegas, Brian Tortorelli, and Dawn Borgland; and all the participants and their parents for their enthusiasm.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Si Jung Kim

Si Jung Kim received his Ph.D. in HCI and Human Factors from the Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. He is currently Assistant Professor in the Howard R. Hughes College of Engineering at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His current research areas include wearable interactions and augmented reality for edutainment.

Catherine A. Bacos

Catherine A. Bacos is a Ph.D. student in the Interaction & Media Sciences program in the Teaching & Learning Department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She received her M.Ed. in Curriculum & Instruction: Educational Technology at UNLV and her B.A. in English and American literature from New York University. Her research interests include examining social interactions in virtual environments and designing learning systems for children with autism.