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Mise-en-scène: Playful Interactive Mechanics to Enhance Children’s Digital Books

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Interactive Storytelling (ICIDS 2015)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 9445))

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Abstract

The inclusion of interactive content has become commonplace in many reading applications for children. Yet a growing body of research suggests that the inclusion of interactive content may distract children from the actual content of the story. Models are used to effectively integrate interactive content into reading applications to support a child’s understanding of the story. This paper discusses the design of an interactive application for Omani children called Trees of Tales, including its use of a mise-en-scène inspired game mechanic to facilitate playful and meaningful engagement with the story. A trial of n = 18 Omani primary school students was used to determine the impact of the design on the intrinsic motivation and engagement in comparison with printed storybooks and e-books with limited interactivity. The findings suggest that Trees of Tales improves children’s motivation to read. There was also evidence that the application enhances reading engagement of female children in particular.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/toontastic/id404693282?mt=8.

  2. 2.

    https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/arabic-stories/id392531885?mt=8.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Game Design Research, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

    Fatma Al Aamri & Stefan Greuter

Authors
  1. Fatma Al Aamri
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  2. Stefan Greuter
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Correspondence to Fatma Al Aamri .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Aalborg University, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Henrik Schoenau-Fog

  2. Aalborg University, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Luis Emilio Bruni

  3. Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, United Kingdom

    Sandy Louchart

  4. Aalborg University, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Sarune Baceviciute

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Al Aamri, F., Greuter, S. (2015). Mise-en-scène: Playful Interactive Mechanics to Enhance Children’s Digital Books. In: Schoenau-Fog, H., Bruni, L., Louchart, S., Baceviciute, S. (eds) Interactive Storytelling. ICIDS 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9445. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27036-4_20

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27036-4_20

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-27035-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-27036-4

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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