Co-creation process of collaborative work with communication robot

Abstract

This paper reports on fieldwork concerning co-creation among primary school students. The students brainstormed ideas and made a play using a robot as a prop. We observed their group decisionmaking process in creating their performance, and concluded that setting up a environment with some "order" is necessary, but freedom must also be preserved for organic decisionmaking. Our results showed that the Japanese children are 1) collaborative decisionmakers (deciding not by majority or by a single leader), 2) avoid conflicts by relying on everyday experience to back their arguments, 3) require outside perspective of a facilitator, and 4) can have equal say if props are used. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.