Abstract

Curriculum-Focused Design
Designing Children’s Multimedia 67
Rode et al. (2003) faced difficulties in porting Druin’s out-of-school model directly
into the classroom. Their aim was to develop tangible, user interfaces for collaborative
use in schools equipped with radio-frequency ID tags. As a result, their work
was situated within the English and Citizenship National Curriculum subjects,
focusing on argument education to allow for curricular and classroom constraints
and their revised methodology, called curriculum-focused design. They used a
range of prototypes from “no-tech,” such as Web page print outs, to “low-tech,”
for example, cardboard boxes, paper, and markers, to “high-tech,” where RF-ID
tag technologies were added.
Although very much akin to my case study design, Rode et al.’s (2003) main findings
differed in the considerable hurdles they faced within the school context. The
class teacher I worked with fit the research sessions into her planning to align with
the objectives she was teaching. The teacher was comfortable and enthusiastic about
low-tech prototyping, in contrast to Rode et al.’s experiences. This methodology
fit well with her refreshingly interdisciplinary approach. The differences in our
findings exemplify the variability in school contexts and pedagogical approaches
where multimedia has a home. They also highlight the helpful and necessary role
teachers play in school-based participatory design sessions. It furthermore highlights
the different kinds of contributions made by members of a design team.
Informant-Based Design
The informant design framework, instead of relying on children in the main to drive
the momentum and direction of a technology, emphasizes team members’ roles
in technology development for children (Scaife & Rogers, 1999). The Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation’s CBC4Kids’ Storybuilder is a case in point. Five practices
were used to evolve the Web-based environment for 8-10 year-olds to collaboratively
tell their Canadian stories (Antle, 2003). User-centered and informant-based design
were among these (Scaife & Rogers, 1999). Using the fundamental principle of
informant-based design, the developers identified key points at which children’s
contributions would be the most valuable. So, amidst the team’s work of examining
“existing storytelling activities, creativity tools and storytelling styles,” children
were consulted at the early concept stage for a period of 12 weeks (Antle, 2003, p.
59). Their involvement was continued as usability testers at the prototype and beta
phases (Antle, 2003).
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