CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

1st Workshop on Smart Toys, Smart Tangibles, Robots and other Smart Things for Children at IDC2020 *** Deadline May 1st ***

Embedding electronics and enabling digital responses to everyday objects is already a widespread reality. The term smart toys, tangibles and robots cover a range of play products that can present different levels of network, processing and reasoning capabilities. Such interfaces have also become capable of collecting and processing data in real-time. While quality aspects and intelligent features are more relevant than ever, many relying on data-driven methods and artificial intelligence (AI), this also raises important privacy issues and concerns. Additionally, the design of meaningful play and learning experiences that go beyond data collection remains a challenging task.

AIM AND OBJECTIVES

This workshop aims to openly discuss challenges and related opportunities to feed the interaction design of smart toys, tangibles, robots and other smart things for children that may shape the lines for future work in the field.

Following themes will be addressed:

- Design methods and methodologies:
Which important principles must be considered to design such smart technology settings for the future?
- AI-powered devices and data-driven interactions:
How shall data privacy and ethics issues be handled? Which special considerations about the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) must be taken with children? How to ensure an adult/tutor is involved in the acceptance of conditions and they are clearly explained to children? Should we need a specific manifesto for toy designers regarding user data processing besides existing regulations?
- Shaping and scoping smart settings with smart toys, tangibles, robots, and other devices:
Which contexts are worth exploring and other target users’ considerations? What different future technological settings can be interesting to explore? Which novel scenarios can we (participants) anticipate or could be interesting to explore in the future? In which use-cases can the smart devices be used to promote children’s learning? In which scenarios can such smart devices be useful for different user groups such as children having attention problems, children having visio-motor coordination issues, learning difficulties, etc.?

HOW TO PARTICIPATE

We invite researchers, non-academics and practitioners that work/are interested in the topics targeted by the virtual workshop to join us at IDC 2020(https://idc.acm.org/2020/) to critically reflect on these aspects.

We welcome three different types of contributions:
- Position papers in relation to any aspect relevant to the workshop where attendants are requested to submit an extended abstract (2-4 pages) following the ACM Sigchi Extended abstract format;
- Live-demo or video, accompanied by a short description and potential benefits as an input to the workshop;
- A short expression of interest to participate by students, non-academics and practitioners, describing their background and motivation of what they would like to do/achieve in relation to the topics of the workshop.

Submissions to the workshop will be done via email following the instructions given in the workshop website(https://sites.google.com/view/smarttoysidc2020/). The contributions will be subject to a juried process to assess their relevance for the workshop, ensuring diversity as well. At least one author of each accepted position paper must attend the workshop and all participants must register for both the workshop and the main conference.

*** IMPORTANT DATES ***
Submission of contributions: 1 May;
Notification of acceptance: 8 May;
Workshop: 19 June

ORGANIZERS
Alejandro Catala, Research Centre in Intelligent Technologies (CiTIUS), Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Cristina Sylla, Research Center on Child Studies CIEC/ITI/LARSyS, University of Minho, Portugal
Arzu Guneysu Ozgur, CHILI Lab, EPFL, Switzerland
Pirita Ihamäki, Prizztech Ltd., Finland
Katriina Heljakka, University of Turku, Finland