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Full-Text Articles in Education

Pushing The Boundaries Of Participatory Design With Children With Special Needs, Jerry Alan Fails Jan 2019

Pushing The Boundaries Of Participatory Design With Children With Special Needs, Jerry Alan Fails

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Despite its inherent challenges, participatory design (PD) has unique benefits when designing technology for children, especially children with special needs. Researchers have developed a multitude of PD approaches to accommodate specific populations. However, a lack of understanding of the appropriateness of existing approaches across contexts presents a challenge for PD researchers. This workshop will provide an opportunity for PD researchers to exchange and reflect on their experiences of designing with children with special needs. We aim to identify, synthesize and collate PD best practices across contexts and participant groups.


Here, There, And Everywhere: Building A Scaffolding For Children’S Learning Through Recommendations, Ashlee Milton, Emiliana Murgia, Monica Landoni, Theo Huibers, Maria Soledad Pera Jan 2019

Here, There, And Everywhere: Building A Scaffolding For Children’S Learning Through Recommendations, Ashlee Milton, Emiliana Murgia, Monica Landoni, Theo Huibers, Maria Soledad Pera

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Reading and literacy are on the decline among children. This is compounded by the fact that children have trouble with the discovery of resources that are appropriate, diverse, and appealing. With technology becoming an evermore presence in children’s lives, tools that can minimize choice overload and ease access to online resources become a must. A powerful but underutilized tool in regards to children that could assist in this situation is a recommender system (RS). We posit that RS could be used to impact children’s learning, using them to not only suggest what children might like but what they need in …


The Seven Layers Of Complexity Of Recommender Systems For Children In Educational Contexts, Emiliana Murgia, Monica Landoni, Theo Huibers, Jerry Alan Fails, Maria Soledad Pera Jan 2019

The Seven Layers Of Complexity Of Recommender Systems For Children In Educational Contexts, Emiliana Murgia, Monica Landoni, Theo Huibers, Jerry Alan Fails, Maria Soledad Pera

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Recommender systems (RS) in their majority focus on an average target user: adults. We argue that for non-traditional populations in specific contexts, the task is not as straightforward–we must look beyond existing recommendation algorithms, premises for interface design, and standard evaluation metrics and frameworks. We explore the complexity of RS in an educational context for which young children are the target audience. The aim of this position paper is to spell out, label, and organize the specific layers of complexity observed in this context.