KidStory: The Impact of Zooming
Technologies on Children’s
Storytelling
Allison Druin, Angela Boltman
Benjamin Bederson, Juan Pablo Hourcade, Allison Farber
University of Maryland
HCIL Open House and Symposium
May 2002
“I can tell you a good story…”
-Olsa, age 7, Sweden
Research has shown storytelling can
benefit children in multiple ways…

Language development
(e.g., NCTE Committee on Storytelling, 1998; Cass, 1967; Ellis
& Brewster, 1998)

Reading and comprehension
(e.g., George & Schaer, 1986; Alex, 1988; Malkina, 1995)

Sense of self and others
(e.g., Kerby, 1991; Schank, 1995; Liberg, 1997)

Creative and artistic expression
(e.g., Bryant, 1910; Cather, 1919; Labov & Waletsky, 1987)
But what effect can technology
have on children’s storytelling?
KidPad
(Boltman et al., 2002; Hourcade et al., 2002; Druin, 2001;
Stanton et al., 2001; Benford et al., 2000; Druin et al., 1997)



A collaborative zooming storytelling tool
Developed by 106 children & 24 adults
from Sweden, England, & the U.S. from
education, computer science, psychology,
& art
KidStory supported from 1998-2001 by
European Union grant under i3
Experimental Schools Environment
Story Elaboration/Recall




Goals
Participants
Methods
Results
Goals


To investigate children’s ability to
elaborate and recall a visual story in
different presentation media
To understand how children’s ability can
differ in story content and story
structure
Participants




72 children, 6-7 years old, 24 in each
condition
Randomly selected, 36 in England,
36 in Sweden
Approx. 50/50 male/female, low/middle
income
Little or no experience with KidPad
Methods

Controlled study with three conditions:



Picture book
Computer with no zooming
Computer with zooming
Methods

The child was asked…



To look through the story by themselves
either on the computer or in a book
To tell the story to the researcher while
looking at the story on the computer or in
the book
To retell the story without any media
Methods


The story: Frog Where are You? (Mayer,
1969)
Previously used in Germany (Bamberg,
1987), Israel (Berman, 1988), & U.S.
(Trabasso et al., 1992)
Frog Where are You?
Example pictures from the story
Methods:
Coding Schemes to Analyze Data on Both
Elaboration and Recall Stories Told

Narrative Structure (Berman, 1988)


Verb tense, text length, connectivity
markers, references to plot-advancing
events
Content (Trabasso et al., 1992)

Relationship of characters to objects,
change in story, actions carried out
attainment of goals
Methods:
Data Analysis



2 X 2 X 2 MANOVA
Condition x Gender x Language
On children’s storytelling for both
elaboration and recall
Results



Notable differences in story elaboration/recall
between the book and both computer
conditions
In the zooming condition, highest frequency
in certain story elaboration codes in content
and structure
The non-zooming computer condition was
never significantly higher than zooming but
outcomes were the same in recall
Results



No significant gender differences found
No significant differences found
recounting story content vs. structure
Multilingual children were found to
recount more complex stories than
monolingual children
Conclusions

Zooming helped children’s discussion of story
connections/plot when viewing the story but
was less helpful in recalling content/structure

If teaching with technology– Try zooming for
elaboration experiences

If developing storytelling technology–
Consider the purpose: recall? elaboration?

Boltman, Ph.D. dissertation
ftp://ftp.cs.umd.edu/pub/hcil/Reports-AbstractsBibliography/2001-24html/2001-24.html