Four month research and design project targeted towards collaboration, learning, and technology use in educational environments for young kids studying in Hong Kong Primary schools. Collaborated with the Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute and a local primary school in order to focus on how kids learn through play and multi-sensory experiences in group dynamics.

Our primary target users were kids aged seven to twelve as according to Piaget's theories of cognitive development, these children are in what is known as the "Concrete Operational Stage", which means they struggle to make sense of abstract concepts, learn through seeing and doing, as well as trial and error. To understand more, we held participatory design workshops at the homes of the kids as well as in classrooms and engaged kids with various activities and tasks such as:

- Spin the bottle question and answering.
- Day in the Life Card Sorting
- Performance Skits
- Imagining with Play-doh and sketching.
- Camera Journal
- Classroom observation

From primary research, we moved onto the concept design stage and eventually settled on a dynamic compassable computing enabled pen concept that allowed students and teachers to access and manipulate learning materials anywhere at school. The 'connected pen', which we code-named Jot, enables students to naturally interact with new forms of interactive learning content, access digital learning materials in many new surfaces and environments, and collaborate with others both physically and digitally.

The Jot pen acts as a direct input tool for students to access dynamic class lessons, learning materials, and community content from classmates and teachers. Students may use their Jot pen on any Jot enabled surface at school, which are represented as regular objects for kids to interact with, such as classroom tables, collaborative Jot boards, and public environment pieces.

The purpose of the Jot eco-system is to enable a future learning infrastructure that supports accessible engaging digital content, social networking, and physical collaboration. The students' personal link to the learning management system is in form of a pen, a tool that allows access to learning material and encourages creative exploration. Various surfaces in the school such as desks, tables, and boards serve as display surfaces through which the pen allows interaction with digital content.

The key values of Jot are to provide:

Engaging Content
Jot is a platform that allows educators and content providers to rethink how to deliver learning material to children. To captivate and capture a child's imagination, content creators must go beyond simply digitizing current learning materials for screens. Lessons should be designed to allow student participation, peer collaboration, instant feedback, reward based learning and high levels of engagement. Jot is both a system and interaction platform to support new and meaningful learning experiences.

Accessibility
Engaging content is only meaningful if it can be accessed anywhere and everywhere. The Jot concept extends digital learning content access outside the classroom into other school environments through digitally enabled surfaces. At school, students only need a Jot Pen, and outside, any Internet enabled device can connect to their personal learning management system.

Collaboration Opportunities
Engaging content is only meaningful if it can be accessed anywhere and everywhere. The Jot concept extends digital learning content access outside the classroom into other school environments through digitally enabled surfaces. At school, students only need a Jot Pen, and outside, any Internet enabled device can connect to their personal learning management system.

Balance between Digital and Physical
It's important to not restrict and push interactions towards screens and digital objects alone. Jot is designed to encourage real world interactions between people and in the tangible environment. At the same time, with Jot, students and teachers enjoy tools and content that are more enabling and enriching than the present day books and learning material. Jot balances the advantages of better feedback, control, access,and interactivity of the digital with the advantages of tangible and interpersonal interactions in the physical world.

In order to test our ideas, proof of concept hardware prototypes were developed using IR pens and Wiimotes inspired by Johnny Lee's low cost multi-point interactive whiteboard program. Interactive Adobe Flash prototypes were built and tested by projecting them onto tables for kids, classmates, and ourselves to play with and experience with our IR pens. We gained valuable feedback from children after bringing our prototype to a local primary school to test. Overall, kids loved directly manipulating interactive content on a table and strongly preferred our interactive prototype experiments to their current tools and objects of learning.

Jot enables students to naturally and creatively interact with one another with the Jot pen through engaging digitally enhanced experiences. Our technology partner Astri reacted very positively to our design concept and is continuing to explore similar ideas in their future product developments.