Children as Teachers - A Tangible Approach

This paper describes an interactive tool that enables children to build their own educational games, based on physical objects with which they usually interact. The T-Games (Tangible Games) authoring tool allows children to use tangible objects for input when creating their own quiz-type games. This idea follows a Learning-by-Teaching approach in which children are given the instructor's role. While creating the games children explore scholar subjects, in order to produce the questions and possible answers which will compose the game content. When playing the game (their own or one built by a colleague) the children can once again test their knowledge in a funny way. Children were actively involved in the design process so they could give us the insight needed to create an intuitive and engaging application. This paper also presents the usability tests that were performed to evaluate the developed prototype and the children motivation to use it.