Computational Thinking (CT) is an emerging topic in school curricula. Different tools exist to support the learning of CT, namely visual programming languages and tangible development platforms (TDP), which are widely used in extra-curricular activities. To date, few tools have been developed that consider both teachers’ needs and the school context. We designed the Kniwwelino Classroom Kit (KCK) in order to support the teaching of CT in classrooms. This paper presents the results of a pilot study, in which the KCK was used in three primary and three secondary schools in Luxembourg. The KCK is based on Kniwwelino, a creative environment designed for children from 8 years old to learn about programming and electronics. The study explored the suitability of the KCK for teaching CT in primary and secondary schools, focusing on three research questions: (1) how the KCK supports teachers’ pedagogical practices, (2) how the KCK fulfils the pedagogical objectives set by teachers, and (3) the user experience of the KCK (for teachers and pupils). To assess how the KCK meets the three above-mentioned objectives, we used a mixed method approach, combining semi-guided interviews, logbooks, and several questionnaires. We learned that the KCK is versatile enough to adapt to different environments, objectives, and pedagogical approaches, which responds to the first two research questions, and thus offers a great deal of freedom to teachers. The fun and tangible approach of the KCK introduces programming and enables pupils to develop both CT and soft skills such as communication and collaboration. Teachers’ feedback on their user experience was positive, particularly concerning stimulation, novelty, and attractiveness. KCK was evaluated as interesting, valuable, and good, but it was noted that some improvements needed to be made to make it easier, more predictable, and faster. The pupils also rated their user experience positively, with values that were generally on a par with previous studies reported in the state of the art regarding the use of Scratch and BBC Micro:bit in school-based experiments for learning CT. Drawing from these learnings, we list several recommendations for the development of other similar TDP tools to support the teaching of CT in a classroom setting. These recommendations concern the material, programming interface, connection, educational material, and the creation of a community.

One of the main benefits of large interactive surfaces (e.g. wall-sized displays) lies in their support for collocated collaboration by facilitating simultaneous interactions with the displays and high awareness of other group members' actions. In the context of remote collaboration, this awareness information needs to be acquired through digital means such as video feeds, which typically offer very limited information on non-verbal communication aspects, including on workspace awareness. We describe a new approach we have implemented to tackle that challenge through a multimodal pipeline that deals with tracking, attributing, transmitting, and visualising non-verbal information through what we refer to as workspace awareness cues, across wall-sized displays placed at distant locations. Our approach relies on commodity depth cameras combined with screen configuration information to generate deictic cues such as pointing targets and gaze direction. It also leverages recent artificial intelligence breakthroughs to attribute such cues to identified individuals and augment them with additional gestural interactions. In the present paper, we expand on the details and rationale behind our approach, describe its technical implementation, validate its novelty with regards to the existing literature, and report on early but promising results from an evaluation we conducted based on a mixed-presence decision-making scenario across two distant wall-sized displays.

Collaborative decision-making increasingly involves wall-sized displays (WSDs), allowing teams to view, analyse and discuss large amounts of data. To enhance workspace awareness for mixed-presence meetings, previous work proposes digital cues to share gestures, gaze, or entire postures. While several isolated cues were proposed and demonstrated useful in different workspaces, it is unknown whether results from previous studies can be transferred to a mixed-presence WSD context and to what extend such cues can be used in a combined way. In this paper, we report on the results from a user study with 24 participants (six groups of four participants), testing a mixed-presence collaboration scenario on two different setups of connected WSDs: audio-video link only vs. full setup with seven complementary cues. Our results show that the version with cues enhances workspace awareness, user experience, team orientation and coordination, and leads teams to take more correct decisions.

This study explores pedestrian perceptions of fully autonomous vehicles and their acceptance. We organized two focus groups in which participants (7 for each) discussed, firstly, their own behavior when crossing the road in front of a human-driven vehicle and the key factors they considered, as perceived benefits and risks of fully autonomous vehicles. Secondly, the factors that could positively influence their own acceptance of fully autonomous vehicles and their preferred interfaces and behaviors (external human-machine interface) for communicating with the fully autonomous vehicles were discussed. Participants highlighted the importance of driver-related cues, the need for clear information on fully autonomous vehicles behavior and the way in which they will be introduced into the automotive landscape, and they indicated their preference for external human-machine interfaces that signal safe crossing. Concerning the external human-machine interfaces, the participants preferred those that projected a green pedestrian crossing onto the road to indicate that the fully autonomous vehicles would wait for the pedestrian to cross. The findings emphasize pedestrians' concerns and preferences to guide the design of future autonomous vehicles.