*** Deadline extended to May 14th 2004 ***

Call for Participation: Designing outdoor interfaces for supporting and
augmenting playing and learning

A one day workshop to be held at the Third ACM Interaction Design and
Children Conference, June1st-3rd, 2004, Maryland.

Organizers: Yvonne Rogers, Indiana University and Sara Price, Sussex
University

Much of the focus on developing technologies for children has so far
been for indoors use. The advent of affordable, accessible and
adaptable handheld, pervasive and wireless technologies is beginning to
change this. We are witnessing the emergence of a new genre of
technology-mediated playing and learning designed to take place
outdoors - be it in the park, the playground, on the bus or other
public place. PDAs, mobile phones, tangibles and other mobile devices
coupled with wi-fi, satellite and GPS systems are providing us with new
opportunities to assemble and design outdoor learning and playing
activities for children on the move. One of the potential benefits of
moving technology outdoors to support learning and playing is that it
encourages children to be more physically active and embodied in their
environment. Physical activities, like exploring, searching, running
and walking can be coupled with technology-based interactions, like
receiving digital information, collecting data, discovering hidden
virtual clues and sending messages/images, using various kinds of
mobile devices. Moving outdoors, however, poses many challenges for
designers and researchers. These include deciding what kinds of
physical activities and interactions to couple together and which kinds
of technologies to use; what kinds of interfaces to use (e.g. speech,
touch screen, audio, graphical) and what kinds of interactions to
design; when to deliver digital information and in what form. The aim
of this workshop is to provide a forum for designers and researchers
who have begun to develop or who are considering designing novel
learning and playing experiences outdoors.

Interested participants should submit a position paper between 4-5
pages to [log in to unmask] and [log in to unmask] by May 14th 2004.