Communication Patterns in Collaborative Peer Learning around Interactive Tables

Despite many advances in technology, interaction and colocated collaboration, there is little knowledge of how children communicate around interactive tables. Key to the success of peer collaborations is the extent to which children communicate and the nature of the talk that contributes towards successful learning. Our work examines the communication patterns of children across various conditions of table-based interaction for different types of educational activities. We present two studies to investigate the communication patterns. Our findings provide insights into the design of interactive tables to support particular forms of social interaction towards understanding how the next generation of HCI will impact our children’s education in the future.