Exploring New Interaction Mechanisms to Support Information Sharing and Collaboration Using Large Multi-touch Displays in the Context of Digital Storytelling

A wide range of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) have been used to support teaching and to enhance the learning process in the last decades. With the latest introduction of large interactive tabletops, multi-touch interaction is taken to the next level since large displays allow and invite not just one but multiple users to interact and collaborate at the same time. The latest presents designers and developers with new challenges in terms of interaction possibilities to promote active collaboration and information sharing. This paper evaluates the use of novel Tangible User Interface (TUI) approaches for the design of an interactive tabletop application conceived to support co-located collaborative learning in the particular context of Digital Storytelling (DS). We present the results of a user interaction study, which considers the users' subjective reaction and acceptance for these User Interface (UI) paradigms, as well as their level of collaboration and communication while working together. The results of the study indicated that the users adapted working in a close collaboration using the provided multi-touch functionalities very quickly. Furthermore, users appreciated the possibility to closely discussing, conversing and exchanging information with their peers through simultaneous interactions on the multi-touch display.