This paper reports on two intervention studies carried in two Danish kindergartens where a Digital Manipulative (DM) was used to investigate how the design of the DM fostered playful processes in a collaborative environment and, furthermore, children's collaborative interactions and play experiences. The Digital Manipulative was developed and empirically validated in a longterm study with various groups of children in a Portuguese preschool, following a user-centred design approach. The study results indicate that children's interaction with the physical blocks generated a democratic collaboration with their peers, which triggered engagement and sustained children's attention for a long time. Children's play with the blocks unfolded two levels of articulation; one level where they used the blocks to create visual narratives and a second level where they used the blocks as construction material. This double function fostered playful learning processes and indicated that the design conveyed potentials to function as a pedagogical resource.
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