This funding will support 35 researchers and graduate students to participate in a Workshop on Mobile Devices for Children, to be held November 2007 in the Human-Computer Interaction Lab at the University of Maryland. The workshop will be conducted over a two-day period and activities will include participant presentations, analysis of existing research areas, and brainstorming of future research avenues. The PIs will invite approximately 10 senior researchers and industry experts to participate and hold a general call for participation for the remaining slots. In addition, 25% of the slots will be specifically designated for graduate students.
In recent years, researchers have been exploring the use of mobile devices for children's educational applications in a number of areas: from data collection by children for field research, to participatory physical simulations, to use as mobile guides, to exploring mobile childrens digital libraries. These mobile devices have ranged from PDAs and mobile phones to Internet Tablets and Ultra-Mobile PCs. Given this important new area of research, it is critical that work for children be highlighted and understood by the greater research community. Possible broader impacts include new research initiatives and collaborations, and dissemination of workshop results to a wider community. Along this line, the PIs will produce a special journal issue which compiles the results of the discussions and presentations. In addition, they will developing an online repository of workshop outcomes on the University of Maryland Human Computer Interaction Laboratory website.
