StoryFaces: pretend-play with ebooks to support social-emotional storytelling

Auteur-es

Ryokai, Kimiko; Raffle, Hayes; Kowalski, Robert

Nombre Auteurs

3

Titre

StoryFaces: pretend-play with ebooks to support social-emotional storytelling

Année de publication

2012

Référence (APA)

Ryokai, K., Raffle, H., & Kowalski, R. (2012). StoryFaces : Pretend-play with ebooks to support social-emotional storytelling. Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children, 125‑133. https://doi.org/10.1145/2307096.2307111

Mots-clés

storytelling, social-emotional development, video recording, children, communication tools, facial expressions

URL

https://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~kimiko/papers/IDC.2012.Ryokai.StoryFaces.pdf

doi

https://doi.org/10.1145/2307096.2307111

Accessibilité de l'article

Open access

Champ

Human-Computer Interaction and Visualization

Type contenu (théorique Applicative méthodologique)

Applicative

Méthode

StoryFaces invites children to record emotional expressions that become part of storybook illustrations.
As children watch the story being told, they see their faces bring the story to life; then they can "go backstage" to play with the story by rearranging the videos and altering the story text. More experienced children can build an interactive ebook from the ground up, creating scenes, characters and expressive faces to craft personalized narratives.
Our design rationale focuses on supporting children's exploration of emotional expression through their narrative play.

Cas d'usage

StoryFaces, digital tool for children

Objectifs de l'article

We introduce StoryFaces, a new composition and storytelling tool for children to explore the role of emotional expressions in children's narrative. Our goal is to provoke new ideas about how pretend play with digital tools can empower young children in social-emotional narrative activities.
We are interested in studying which kinds of expressions and stories children at various stages of development can successfully engage in with StoryFaces. [...] The primary goal of our study was not to quantify children's performance with StoryFaces in an empirical setting, but rather to observe the kinds of expressive activities children were able to engage in with the tool.

Question(s) de recherche/Hypothèses/conclusion

Research question(s) : Facial expression is one of the strong non-verbal communication cues we humans use in understanding one another. For young children, understanding facial expressions seems to play a role in their cognitive, social, and language development [3]. While it is assumed that children naturally develop these capabilities in interaction with other people in their environment, research suggests benefits in fostering these skills, and these skills seem to be teachable [9]. [...] There is a clear opportunity for open-ended play with digital tools today. [...] While games can teach explicit knowledge like math or spelling, they do not usually encourage children's creativity or social play and learning. But games keep children engaged; can open-ended digital play engage children as well?

Hypothesis(es) : In this paper, we argue that children's natural interest in pretend play and emotional expression can provide an appealing point of entry for children to engage in self-guided play and learning with digital tools.

Conclusion(s) : Results indicate that emotional expressions are inviting and motivating for children across this broad age range to engage in both reading and creating narrative. StoryFaces gave children's ephemeral facial expressions concrete forms with which they could manipulate, discuss, and think about the role of emotion in narratives.

Cadre théorique/Auteur.es

Developmental psychology

Facial expressions and development of social skills in children (Bergen, 2002; Declerck and Bogaert, 2008; Marsh, Kozak and Ambady, 2007; Walden and Field, 1982; Grinspan, Hemphill and Nowicki, 2003; Profyt and Whissell, 1991; Widen and Russell, 2003)

Role-playing and storytelling (Goodman, 1996; Singer, 1998; Teale and Sulzby, 1986; Vygotsky, 1986)

Theory of multiple intelligences (Gardner, 1982)

Theory of children's co-evolution and creative tools (Raffle, 2008)

Digital tools developed in Human-Computer Interaction to develop children's knowledge (Hourcade et al., 2002 ; Humphries, and McDonald, 2011 ; Kapoor, Mota and Picard, 2001 ; Raffle et al., 2010 ; Raffle et al., 2011 ; Raffle et al., 2007 ; Tseng and Ellen, 2010 ; Ryokai, Kowalski, and Raffle, 2011)

Concepts clés

Development of social skills

Données collectées (type source)

In our study, we focused on this age group [preschool (age 4-5), and elementary school (age 6-10)] to observe how StoryFaces supported these emergent expressive skills in pretend play and storytelling.
All children played with StoryFaces in a pair with another playmate within the same age group. One of the premade stories, "Walking in the Woods" was used as a practice story with some assistance from a researcher. After the practice story, children were invited to play with StoryFaces by themselves. The children were told that they were free to play with it as long as they wished. Children's sessions were video recorded for later analyses.

Définition des émotions

No definition

Evokes children's understanding of facial emotions

Ampleur expérimentation (volume de comptes)

18 children participated in the study: 8 children were enrolled in a preschool (age 4-5), and 10 children were enrolled in an elementary school (age 6-10).
Each session lasted approximately 45 minutes.

Technologies associées

StoryFaces is written in ActionScript 3, which provides access to video and audio hardware as well as an animation framework

Mention de l'éthique

ND

Finalité communicationnelle

Looking ahead, we would also like to see how the findings of this research combining narrative and emotion may help children with autism spectrum disorder.
Further, as more children are using tablets in their everyday learning, we hope this research can inspire a new generation of software and content designers to use media in ways that engage children's creativity and social- emotional learning.

Résumé

We introduce StoryFaces, a new composition and storytelling tool for children to explore the role of emotional expressions in children's narrative. StoryFaces invites children to record emotional expressions that become part of storybook illustrations. As children watch the story being told, they see their faces bring the story to life; then they can "go backstage" to play with the story by rearranging the videos and altering the story text. More experienced children can build an interactive ebook from the ground up, creating scenes, characters and expressive faces to craft personalized narratives. Our design rationale focuses on supporting children's exploration of emotional expression through their narrative play. Results with eighteen children ages 4-10 indicate that emotional expressions are inviting and motivating for children across this broad age range to engage in both reading and creating narrative. StoryFaces gave children's ephemeral facial expressions concrete forms with which they could manipulate, discuss, and think about the role of emotion in narratives. Our goal is to provoke new ideas about how pretend play with digital tools can empower young children in social-emotional narrative activities.