Research report

July 2004
Ben Williamson, Futurelab

The full version of this report is available to download in pdf format - see box below. On this page you'll find the report's executive summary.

Executive summary

The Moovl prototype is an online drawing program with dynamic properties which allow images to be 'programmed' to move according to simple physics of mass, elasticity, air resistance and solidity. An online scrapbook component allows users to share their images.

Moovl was conceived, designed and developed by Soda Creative Ltd. Futurelab designed and conducted the research activities with children in school. The research and development process involved a workshop with subject specialists, and early stage usability testing and interviews with children to inform subsequent design and functionality modifications.

The final trial took place over four days early in June 2004 at two school sites. This report describes and analyses the data recorded at one of these sites, a primary school in inner-city Bristol. 31 children from Year 3 (aged 7-8) and 30 children from Year 1 (aged 5-6) used Moovl. 8 children (4 from each year group) were chosen for case study analysis. Video recordings were made, and the children's Moovl creations collated. Research Machines loaned 12 tablet PCs to Futurelab in order to conduct the study.

Nearly all of the children in both age groups involved in the trial were engaged and motivated by using Moovl. Several students who had used Moovl in different iterations throughout the R&D process remained enthusiastic about it, suggesting it has long-term appeal.

Overall the interface and functionality proved intuitive to use by the children, who easily grasped the primary tools and needed very little tutoring. However, the children experienced some problems with certain aspects of the functionality and interface, most notably the air resistance function which they interpreted as 'bounciness', and there was also some confusion about two of the save functions.

There are some issues to do with Moovl's compatibility with children's natural drawing styles. Moovl requires children to be able to be able to 'make ends meet' when drawing closed objects, and solid shapes usually need to be drawn in one continuous line. According to previous research, however, most children have trouble joining up figures, and find it easier to compose solid shapes out of multiple pen strikes. It was clear in the Moovl research that joining up figures and composing shapes out of single continuous pen strokes was problematic for some children, particularly the younger ones.

Using Moovl generated a lot of questions. Many of these were at the simple level of comprehending the software, though the children were also recorded asking questions where it was clear they were actually considering representation first and working backwards to discover what functions would be able to animate that representation.

Many of the children elicited hypotheses about scientific phenomena and predictions about how to use the software appropriately. They were often observed erasing and amending their images if the intended simulation did not work as planned, and often celebrated the completion of a successful simulation.

The learning that may occur using Moovl operates on several dimensions-firstly at the level of comprehending the properties and how these individually affect motion on the screen; secondly, understanding how different properties used in tandem affect the physical behaviours of objects; and thirdly, how those properties can be used to represent certain actions, ie weightlessness being used to simulate flight or elasticity to simulate hopping.

Moovl was seen to generate a significant amount of dialogue, with children discussing their use of the software, describing their images to each other, and in some cases even generating on-going narratives as a thread to pull through all their image manipulation activities.

The role of the teacher when it comes to using Moovl is very important. Almost all of the children generated images that had striking similarities to the models supplied by the teachers during the whole-class whiteboard exercises. The children were then able to modify those models and to explore the consequences of manipulating variables.

Children were clearly influenced in the design of their images by those of their peers, and often design ideas were transmitted around the group through dialogue and simply by overhearing or peeking at others' images. The public scrapbook was therefore greeted very enthusiastically by the children, and should prove to be very useful if used over a longer period for peer-based work and the production of shared public representations.

top of page