4 million SEK to investigate how interactive assistive touch based technologies for children with intellectual disabilities can be designed

NYHET: 2013-12-16

Researchers Olof Torgersson, Wolmet Barendregt and Eva Eriksson from the Department of Applied IT are granted 4 000 000 SEK from Stiftelsen Marcus och Amalia Wallenbergs Minnesfond.

The project Touch AT! – Designing interactive assistive touch technologies for children with intellectual disabilities aims to investigate how interactive assistive touch based technologies for children with intellectual disabilities (ID) in grade 6-9 in the Swedish Compulsory school for children with learning disabilities (särskola) can be designed. The project will work with user centred design, and investigate how children with ID, teachers, families, care takers and adults with ID can participate as co-designers in the development process.

The interdisciplinary consortium will consist of researchers from Interaction Design at Chalmers University of Technology, Learning Communication and IT from the University of Gothenburg as well as other departments at the university and other schools. The goal is to design and evaluate a range of different assistive applications focusing on the child´s social and emotional behaviour, and develop a framwork consisting of methods and means for how to design and evaluate technology for and with this user grous. The project will run for three years.

http://www.ait.gu.se/aktuellt/nyheter/fulltext//4-million-sek-to-investigate-how-interactive-assistive-touch-based-technologies-for-children-with-intellectual-disabilities-can-be-designed.cid1197417

On November 12th, IDAC gave a presentation at Visual Forum at Lindholmen, Gothenburg. Carl Heath gave the talk “Hackerklubben – datorprogrammering och digitalt skapande för barn”. For more info, see here: http://visualarenalindholmen.se/visualforum

IDAC just received funding for the project “Artefactecologies among children and teenagers – a complex relation”. The project is a joint research cooperation with Center for Participatory IT in Aarhus, Denmark.

We are looking forward to new challenges!

Peter Larsson at the Department of Applied IT at Chalmers/GU has written a nice article about IDAC. See here (in Swedish):

http://www.ait.gu.se/aktuellt/nyheter/fulltext/ny-arbetsgrupp-involverar-barnen-i-designarbetet.cid1187292

IDAC will soon give a Master level course in Interaction design and children at the Interaction Design and Technologies Master program at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, more information here; http://ixdcth.se/courses/2013/ciu235/

The course offers training in working with user centered design, where the children, their parents, families, teachers and caregivers can participate as co-designers in the design process. The direct involvement of users as co-designers empowers the users to form their own tools and contexts, as well as give them increased confidence in that their meaning is important. This is the sustainable approach, where the designer and the user melt together, creating ownership.

The course will focus on interaction design and children with or without special needs, both in practice and theory. The theory of the course will consist of methods, tools, pedagogy and literature on physiological and psychological development. The practice will consist of exercises and a project out in the wild.

We are still in the planning phase, so any input is welcome!

   On the 6th of September, IDAC went on tour to Billund in Denmark, invited to participate in a meeting and tour around LEGO factory, Idea House and Innovation. Inspiring talks about IT,children and creativity!

Members of IDAC will be guest editors of a special issue of the journal Interaction Design and Architecture. The theme is: “Design for children and older people – Educating the Next Generation of Designers”

The call can be found here:

http://www.mifav.uniroma2.it/inevent/events/idea2010/index.php?s=102

IDAC contributed to Göteborgs Kulturkalaset by hosting a workshop at Göteborgs Kulturkalas in August 2013, aiming at teaching programming to children aged 8-12.

Read more here about the event here:

http://kulturkalaset.goteborg.com/2013/programpunkt.php?id=1957

Read more about Hackerklubben here:

http://hackerklubben.se/

For two weeks in august, IDAC attends the Summer PIT senior seminar series at Aarhus University in Denmark: http://pit.au.dk/summerpit/. The focus is on different perspecives of Participatory Design, inculding  design with children. The seminar is hosted by Center for Participatory Information Technology – PIT.