StoryMat: A Play Space with Narrative Memories

Kimiko Ryokai and Justine Cassell
Gesture and Narrative Language Group
MIT Media Laboratory
E15-315
20 Ames St, Cambridge, Massachusetts
+1 617 253 7211
{kimiko, justine}@media.mit.edu

Storytelling plays an essential role in children's daily activities. Listening to others' stories and sharing their stories with others are activities through which children make sense of their inner world  and the world around them. While computers are emerging in children's world by means of educational tools or games, there is a considerable lack of computer mediated systems that simply support children's everyday storytelling activities. In this paper, we present the design and the prototype of a work-in-progress, StoryMat: a soft intelligent play mat that records and recalls children's storytelling activities.

Keywords: Storytelling, recording and recalling stories, soft interface