Educational games and the new forms of interactions

Abstract

Games are seen as environments that promote the engagement of children to the learning of Computational Thinking (CT) concepts. The new forms of interaction using body movements and gestures have increased in particular in video-games. However, few studies have been conducted to investigate how children feel and interact when using hand gestures in the context of learning tools. And this number becomes low when we look at studies about CT learning. In this article, we explored the feedback of 29 children about their interaction by using hand gestures in a game to stimulate the CT, i.e. a CT game. In the analysis, we explored how these forms of interaction impacted on the accomplishing of the game phases. Our findings revealed the children kept more engaged when using hand gestures, and consequently, this affected their concentration on the game purpose. To complement our investigation, we interviewed 8 elementary school teachers to gather their perceptions about the potential of using hand gestures and our game. The findings showed the teachers agreed that hand gestures are suitable to be used in learning tools. They also demonstrated interested in introducing the CT fundamentals in their classes. However, these teachers demonstrated some concerns about how to match the use of that technology to their teaching activities.