by Constantine Stephanidis
The one-day Workshop on ‘Interactive Learning Environments for Children’ took place at the Training and Conference Center of the National Bank of Greece S.A., in Athens, Greece, on March 3rd 2000. The Workshop was organised by the ERCIM Working Group on ‘User Interfaces for All’ in the context of the i3 Spring Days 2000, with Prof. Constantine Stephanidis as the Workshop Chair.
The Workshop aimed to consolidate recent work and to stimulate further discussion, on the state of the art in user interfaces that are intended for use by children, as well as to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and experience between researchers and practitioners in the fields of Universal Access and Design for All, and the i3 community. The success of the Workshop confirmed the expectations that there are many common research themes between the field of User Interfaces for All and the i3 community, and initiated a lively and fruitful exchange.
Following a peer review process, the proceedings have included three main categories of articles accepted for presentation at the Workshop: 6 long papers, 5 short papers, and 1 position paper. The proceedings of the Workshop are electronically available via the Web site of the ERCIM Working Group ‘User Interfaces for All’ at the URL address: http://ics.forth.gr/proj/at-hci/UI4ALL/i3SD2000/proceedings.html.
The Workshop attracted considerable interest from an international audience, with more than 50 participants from countries around the world. The paper presentations and discussions during the workshop covered a variety of topics, including: theoretical and technical frameworks for meeting children’s needs; the design and evaluation of Interactive Learning Environments; Virtual Reality Learning Environments; standard and adaptive multimedia interfaces for disabled children; computer games for blind children; and distance learning environments.
The participants had the opportunity to discuss and exchange ideas for future co-operation between the two research communities. As a first step towards more close collaboration, the i3 community was invited to participate in the 6th ERCIM Workshop on ‘User Interfaces for All’ that will take place in Florence, Italy, 25-26 October 2000 (Local Organiser: Dr. Pier Luigi Emiliani, Director of CNR-IROE).
Please contact:
Constantine Stephanidis – FORTH-ICS
Chair, ERCIM Working Group ‘User Interfaces for All’
Tel: +30 81 39 17 41
E-mail: cs@ics.forth.gr