Experimental development of competitive digital educational games on multi-touch screen for young children

Abstract

Multi-touch technology offers us a new opportunity to develop digital educational games (DEGS) for children. Current researches are focusing on the area of cooperative learning, and the devices used are mostly horizontal. Can we develop competitive DEGS for children? How would it look like if these games are shown on vertical screens? Based on these assumptions, we did some experimental development researches. In this paper, the design and implementation of four competitive DEGS are introduced, each of which targeting a specific kind of intelligence (verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical and visual-spatial) based on the theory of multiple intelligences. Tryout was made on some preschool children and the problems encountered are analyzed. The experiences gained in the whole process are summarized in the end. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.