Exploring playful language education through co-creation with children

This paper gives an insight into Waag Society’s research and design approach on the development of educational games for children, illustrated by a description of the project StoryBOX. The innovative pilot StoryBOX stimulates the development of language in the form of intuitive play. Tangible, technologically enriched objects enable children, aged six/seven, to learn by playing together. By addressing creative, collaborative and spatial skills a playful approach to learning a language is developed. This approach connects to an existing educational format used in Dutch primary schools. A key aspect of this project was to involve pupils and teachers in the design process to assure that the final product would suit the needs of the end-users. The National Language Education Center (Expertisecentrum Nederlands) evaluated the effects of working with StoryBOX in short sessions. They concluded that StoryBOX could be beneficial to pupils who encounter difficulties within the normal school curriculum.