The Development of Face-to-Face Collaboration Technology for Young Children

Face-to-face communication and collaboration are important aspects of children's healthy development. With technology becoming ubiquitous in children's lives, we need to better understand how to best support face-to-face activities when they use technology. My dissertation research will support social physical activities for young children through interactive technologies, where the technology does not distract or impede the social and physical aspects of play. To obtain lessons from existing research, I conducted a content analysis of research design trends relating to face-to-face collaboration systems for children presented in publications between 1991 and 2017. I completed the initial stages of a system to classify collaborative technologies, and I created a system, StoryCarnival, which utilizes Voice User Interfaces (VUIs) to support high-quality, creative social play. My contributions are the design, development, and evaluation of technologies that best support social, collaboration activities through interactive technologies for children under five.