Response to Video Playdate: Toward Free Play across Distance

Summary

In this paper the authors investigate how video conferencing can be used to help support children play together. They look at a variety of different conditions and how each affected the children's style and enjoyment of the play.

Reaction

Looking at particularly young children is interesting because they are less familiar with the concepts of video conferencing and what to do, but more adaptable and likely to take on a technology (see children with iPhones). Children are also less likely to put up with nonsense on the part of the technology or the conditions of the experiment. Free play is also a very interesting topic to tackle because unlike many of the studies we have looked at it is the kind of activity children actually do on a regular basis.

 Certainly the technology constrains how well this type of system will work at the moment. It would be interesting to see if a "same virtual room" condition (like Bon and David have worked on) would produce interesting results (or if it would simply produce situations like they saw with the rug).

Alternately rather than the mobil condition that the authors used, it would be interesting, possibly for slightly older children, to provide them with a robotic avatar. There was a research at an Ontario tech company (possibly RIM, I don't remember) who telecommuted, but had a robot with a screen and a camera at his office which he could use to replicate many day-to-day activities like going to someone's office to talk to them. This approach would give the remote partner more interactivity in the space (bi-directionality would probably be a problem), and it would be interesting to see how children respond to "their friend, but in a different body".