Correction: Lehtonen et al. The Potentials of Tangible Technologies for Learning Linear Equations. Multimodal Technol. Interact. 2020, 4, 77

In the original publication, there was a mistake in Table 3 as published [...]

The Potentials of Tangible Technologies for Learning Linear Equations

Tangible technologies provide interactive links between the physical and digital worlds, thereby merging the benefits of physical and virtual manipulatives. To explore the potentials of tangible technologies for learning linear equations, a tangible manipulative (TM) was designed and developed. A prototype of the initial TM was implemented and evaluated using mixed methods (i.e., classroom interventions, paper-based tests, thinking aloud sessions, questionnaires, and interviews) in real classroom settings. Six teachers, 24 primary school students, and 65 lower secondary school students participated in the exploratory study. The quantitative and qualitative analysis revealed that the initial TM supported student learning at various levels and had a positive impact on their learning achievement. Moreover, its overall usability was also accepted. Some minor improvements with regard to its pedagogy and usability could be implemented. These findings indicate that the initial TM is likely to be beneficial for linear equation learning in pre-primary to lower secondary schools and be usable in mathematics classrooms. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Tangible Technologies for Childhood Education: A Systematic Review

This study reviews published scientific literature on the use of tangible technologies in childhood education, in order to (a) identify the what tangible technologies have been used, (b) recognize the educational purposes and uses these technologies of, and (c) present a synthesis of the available empirical evidence on its educational effectiveness. After systematically searching in WoS, 288 relevant articles were located and analyzed using the Science Mapping Analysis Software Tool from 1968 to 2018. Then, 29 relevant papers of the last five years were included in the review study. For each article, we analyze the purpose of the study, the type of tangible technology used, the research method applied, the sample characteristics and the main results observed. The articles reviewed suggest that the main tangible technology used in childhood education is the tablet and literacy (basic and emergent) is the area most studied with promising results.

Artefatos Tangíveis e a Avaliação de Estados Afetivos por Crianças

Modern and ubiquitous computational systems increasingly demand more evaluations, which consider aspects beyond ergonomy, usability and accessibility to include means of understanding the affective states of those involved in the interaction. Nevertheless, whenever the involved parties are predominantly children, it becomes necessary to promote ludic and accessible means of involving people in the evaluation activities, because it is expected that the assessment tool used allows all stakeholders to express themselves according to their age and understanding. Existing studies have proposed abstract solutions that difficult the comprehension and participation of those involved in the expression of affective states. In this article, we developed and evaluated the TangiSAM environment, which includes sets of tridimensional concrete manikins that take advantage of tangible technologies, allowing the assessment of affective states in a ludic manner. We conducted an evaluation in a real-world educational setting, including both children and teachers, in order to understand whether the TangiSAM’s tangible artifacts favor a better self-evaluation experience. We found that TangiSAM was more frequently assigned as the most favorite by the participants in the comparison to other affective-state representation proposals.

Tangible Representational Properties: Implications for Meaning Making

Tangible technologies are considered promising tools for learning, by enabling multimodal interaction through physical action and manipulation of physical and digital elements, thus facilitating representational concrete–abstract links. A key concept in a tangible system is that its physical components are objects of interest, with associated meanings relevant to the context. Tangible technologies are said to provide ‘natural’ mappings that employ spatial analogies and adhere to cultural standards, capitalising on people’s familiarity with the physical world. Students with intellectual disabilities particularly benefit from interaction with tangibles, given their difficulties with perception and abstraction. However, symbolic information does not always have an obvious physical equivalent, and meanings do not reside in the representations used in the artefacts themselves, but in the ways they are manipulated and interpreted. In educational contexts, meaning attached to artefacts by designers is not necessarily transparent to students, nor interpreted by them as the designer predicted. Using artefacts and understanding their significance is of utmost importance for the construction of knowledge within the learning process; hence the need to study the use of the artefacts in contexts of practice and how they are transformed by the students. This article discusses how children with intellectual disabilities conceptually interpreted the elements of four tangible artefacts, and which characteristics of these tangibles were key for productive, multimodal interaction, thus potentially guiding designers and educators. Analysis shows the importance of designing physical-digital semantic mappings that capitalise on conceptual metaphors related to children’s familiar contexts, rather than using more abstract representations. Such metaphorical connections, preferably building on physical properties, contribute to children’s comprehension and facilitate their exploration of the systems.