KidStory: The Impact of Zooming Technologies on Children

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KidStory The Impact of Zooming Technologies on
Childrens Storytelling

• Allison Druin, Angela Boltman
• Benjamin Bederson, Juan Pablo Hourcade, Allison
  Farber
• University of Maryland
• HCIL Open House and Symposium
• May 2002

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I can tell you a good story

• -Olsa, age 7, Sweden

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Research has shown storytelling can benefit
children in multiple ways

• Language development
• (e.g., NCTE Committee on Storytelling, 1998
  Cass, 1967 Ellis Brewster, 1998)
• Reading and comprehension
• (e.g., George Schaer, 1986 Alex, 1988
  Malkina, 1995)
• Sense of self and others
• (e.g., Kerby, 1991 Schank, 1995 Liberg, 1997)
• Creative and artistic expression
• (e.g., Bryant, 1910 Cather, 1919 Labov
  Waletsky, 1987)

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But what effect can technology have on childrens
storytelling?
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KidPad(Boltman et al., 2002 Hourcade et al.,
2002 Druin, 2001 Stanton et al., 2001 Benford
et al., 2000 Druin et al., 1997)

• A collaborative zooming storytelling tool
• Developed by 106 children 24 adults from
  Sweden, England, the U.S. from education,
  computer science, psychology, art
• KidStory supported from 1998-2001 by European
  Union grant under i3 Experimental Schools
  Environment

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Story Elaboration/Recall

• Goals
• Participants
• Methods
• Results

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Goals

• To investigate childrens ability to elaborate
  and recall a visual story in different
  presentation media
• To understand how childrens ability can differ
  in story content and story structure

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Participants

• 72 children, 6-7 years old, 24 in each condition
• Randomly selected, 36 in England, 36 in Sweden
• Approx. 50/50 male/female, low/middle income
• Little or no experience with KidPad

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Methods

• Controlled study with three conditions
• Picture book
• Computer with no zooming
• Computer with zooming

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Methods

• The child was asked
• To look through the story by themselves either on
  the computer or in a book
• To tell the story to the researcher while looking
  at the story on the computer or in the book
• To retell the story without any media

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Methods

• The story Frog Where are You? (Mayer, 1969)
• Previously used in Germany (Bamberg, 1987),
  Israel (Berman, 1988), U.S. (Trabasso et al.,
  1992)

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Frog Where are You?
Example pictures from the story
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Methods Coding Schemes to Analyze Data on Both
Elaboration and Recall Stories Told

• Narrative Structure (Berman, 1988)
• Verb tense, text length, connectivity markers,
  references to plot-advancing events
• Content (Trabasso et al., 1992)
• Relationship of characters to objects, change in
  story, actions carried out attainment of goals

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Methods Data Analysis

• 2 X 2 X 2 MANOVA
• Condition x Gender x Language
• On childrens storytelling for both elaboration
  and recall

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Results

• Notable differences in story elaboration/recall
  between the book and both computer conditions
• In the zooming condition, highest frequency in
  certain story elaboration codes in content and
  structure
• The non-zooming computer condition was never
  significantly higher than zooming but outcomes
  were the same in recall

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Results

• No significant gender differences found
• No significant differences found recounting story
  content vs. structure
• Multilingual children were found to recount more
  complex stories than monolingual children

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Conclusions

• Zooming helped childrens discussion of story
  connections/plot when viewing the story but was
  less helpful in recalling content/structure
• If teaching with technology Try zooming for
  elaboration experiences
• If developing storytelling technology Consider
  the purpose recall? elaboration?
• Boltman, Ph.D. dissertationftp//ftp.cs.umd.edu/p
  ub/hcil/Reports-Abstracts-Bibliography/2001-24html
  /2001-24.html