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Where we are now

The Consortium is working on achieving the pedagogical, scientific and technological objectives simultaneously.

At the scientific and psychophysical level, we carried out psychophysical experiments with psychophysical methodologies to understand motoricapabilities of typical children at different stages of their development (6-7yo and 8-10yo). We also worked to identify the primary and most suitable sensory modality to teach typical developing children the different arithmetical and geometrical concepts. The developed technological solutions and serious games will be validated at the psychophysical and pedagogical level, by creating a link between these two approaches.

In the first nine months, we have developed specific tests and we have performed psychophysical experiments with primary school children to evaluate their motor skills, their arithmetic skills and their geometrical skills. 

At the pedagogical level, we worked on the pedagogical design and evaluation of the new technological solutions proposed in weDRAW. The pedagogists, working closely with primary school teachers, identified key mathematical and geometrical learning concepts for this age group, where multimodal and multisensory engagement holds particular promise for understanding different mathematical and geometrical concepts. We defined specifically the multisensory embodied and enactive pedagogical framework for teaching and learning arithmetical and geometrical concepts with primary school children. Specifically, the pedagogists highlighted the extent to which the developed pedagogical framework can be applied to both typically developing and visually impaired children. In particular, we identified working with teachers and children, the learning concepts and the design requirements to be incorporated into the new technological solutions and serious games; we evaluated the results obtained with psychophysical testing eventually.

At the technological level, first we worked on the development of a library of software modules for analysis of nonverbal motor expressive and social behaviour of both individuals and small groups of children. The library is necessary also for real-time control of sound, music, haptic, and visual feedback and for multimodal (tactile, motor) analysis of nonverbal behaviour to capture the child’s learning-related affective states. In addition, we worked on developing an integrated hardware and software platform, supporting multiple different inputs and output devices, and scalable to different learning environments (e.g., school and home), integrating the above-mentioned libraries. Finally, we are designing and developing the three serious games, exploiting both the platform and libraries, and applying the art-inspired multisensory embodied and enactive pedagogical framework developed in the project.

In the next period, the same skills will be measured in visually impaired children and children with dyslexia to identify the sensory modalities that can effectively supplement the main sensory modality when this is compromised
In the next period, we will evaluate the pedagogical effectiveness of the new technological solutions and serious games for both typically developing and impaired children.

In the next period, we are developing and validating the prototypes for the three serious games: one to learn arithmetic, one to learn geometry and the third one to learn together (social).

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Where we are going

weDRAW is expected to significantly contribute to have a direct impact on society, especially with respect to enhancing the teaching and learning processes. The final goal of weDRAW is both to improve the creative capacities of children by learning new mathematical concepts and to support the role of teacher in the learning process.

IMPACT ON TECHNOLOGIES FOR LEARNING

weDRAW will release a platform, three serious games, and other prototypes that represent novel ICT products and services for technology-enhanced learning.
A novel ICT-supported paradigm to learn arithmetic and geometry linking body movement with time in music and with space in drawing.
The serious games are developing for children linking body movement with visual and auditory feedback, taking art (namely music and drawing) as a fundamental basis to design feedback.
Novel ICT tools for early diagnosis: screening for dyslexia in children. Preliminary data collected at IIT suggest that dyslexic children have a lower precision on time perception. Such evidence would enable providing a fast screening approach to highlight situations in which dyslexia may be present.

To this aim, an app was developed in weDRAW for assessing precision on time perception from different sensory modalities.

IMPACT ON PEDAGOGICAL APPROACHES

weDRAW technologies are expected to contribute to innovative pedagogical approaches, enabling teachers to modify the system and design activities to meet the specific needs of their students. We focus greatly on teachers and their role. Several workshops are organized both in Italy and in the UK. Besides, we defines with the teachers which concepts are more suitable for weDRAW technologies.

SOCIETAL IMPACT

The education possibilities for pupils with special (dis)abilities will increase as well as the capacity to retain pupils in the areas threatened by lack of specialized schools.  A relevant aspect in weDRAW is that its approach and technology need to enable the application of the same learning paradigm to typically developed and impaired children.
weDRAW is also expected to induce a chain of events encouraging both institutions and citizens to adopt more widely specialized ICT methods and tools into sustainable educational development models of the local and regional education systems.