The Design of Digital Tools for the Primary Writing Classroom

This paper describes the process by which a group of seven and eight year old children designed their own digital writing tools following their own study of digital pens, personal digital assistants and tablet PCs. Some of the children’s thoughts about the three technologies are presented and how these were carried through into their own designs is explored. It was found that although the children were quite individual in their designs, their peers easily influenced them and their designs were limited by their abilities with the low-tech prototyping environments. The paper concludes with some ideas for further work and provides some guidelines for researchers wanting to carry out design activities with children.