Disaster education plays a critical role in preparing children for emergency situations. However, existing approaches often rely on fixed scenarios and passive learning formats, limiting sustained engagement and the ability to handle real-world uncertainty.

Eye-tracking data is used for behavioral analysis in art appreciation, and we have been developing viewing guide systems for museums that visualize gaze data to support viewers’ self-reflection. We previously developed "Gaze Crew" using a remote eye tracker; however, remote eye trackers have limitations in measurement range. To address this, we propose "View Crew," a new viewing guide system using a wearable eye tracker (Tobii Pro Glasses 3) that records and visualizes viewing behavior from a first-person perspective. An evaluation experiment with 19 museum visitors revealed that the system provided an enjoyable and intuitive experience. Unexpectedly, we found that companion comments and the first-person video itself, rather than gaze visualization alone, served as crucial triggers for deeper self-reflection.

Museum exhibitions encourage self-directed learning in children, but existing digital technologies, such as mobile guides, tend to be used individually, limiting interactions among visitors. Large-screen displays are difficult to install, and AR applications on smartphones and tablets are challenging to share and are sensitive to environmental conditions. This study proposes a learning support system called Muse-Torch to promote dialogue and sharing. The system uses a torch-shaped mobile device with a small projector and QR panels printed using a CMYK-based invisible printing method installed in front of exhibits. It can be customized by replacing the projected interface images according to the exhibition content. The field test showed that the system effectively provided users with enjoyment and promoted sharing and collaboration. This paper reports the design, implementation, and field test results of the system and contributes to the design of collaborative systems for exhibit viewing easily implemented in museums.

This paper explores the integration of mobile augmented reality technology in museums, specifically through the development of the "Talkative Museum" prototype, aiming to enrich the museum visiting experience through interactive and collaborative engagements. As vital conduits for cultural and knowledge transmission, museums face the challenge of captivating the digital-native younger generation. Our research addresses this by leveraging advancements in mobile computing and human-computer interaction to foster engaging, intuitive, and collaborative learning environments within the museum context. The prototype facilitates interactions among parents and children and exhibits and encourages exploration and dialogue through augmented reality-enhanced activities. Preliminary user tests involving participants from the National Museum of Ethnology indicated positive responses to the app's usability and collaborative aspects of the museum experience. The analysis of questionnaire responses and observational data suggests that the prototype successfully promotes user engagement, collaborative learning, and the discovery of new knowledge.

We have developed a preliminary learning support system for zoos where children can learn about the ecologies of animals while moving their bodies. For children, the zoo is a place of learning, where they can observe live animals carefully and learn about ecology. However, some animals are exceptionally difficult to observe carefully, and the observers may find it challenging to learn in such scenarios. Therefore, in this research, we developed a learning support system that efficiently acquires knowledge about the ecologies of animals that are difficult to observe in zoos. This system uses a sensor to measure the body movements of the learner; certain animals also tend to respond based on these movements. By doing so, live animals can be carefully observed virtually, and ecological learning is achieved via touch. In this work, we describe the results of evaluating the usefulness of the current system by developing a prototype and evaluating experiments as the first step towards realizing a learning support system to achieve ecological learning of animal observations in zoos.

In this paper, we develop a collaborative/interactive learning game for deaf children. We developed two separate activities for the proposed game: 'jumping' and 'filling in the blanks'. These two activities are described in detail. Because deaf children tend to find it difficult to acquire voice information, we examined a system that supports the construction of an environment for deaf children in which collaborative learning is encouraged from the perspective of science education. The results of an evaluation confirm that the proposed game encourages collaborative learning among deaf children and improves their motivation to learn grammar.

We have developed a full-body interaction game that allows children to cooperate and interact with other children in small groups. The aim of the game developed in this study is to encourage cooperation between children. The game requires two children to jump together at the same time. In a series of experiments, we observed children using several strategies to coordinate the timing of their jumps, such as shouting to one another and watching each other. The results of a questionnaire to evaluate the proposed interactive game indicate that children strategize to cooperate with each other while enjoying the game. Therefore, the game enables children to cooperate with others using bodily movements.

We are developing an art-appreciation system that will provide learning information about pictures while generating interest in the pictures themselves. This system can provide learning information on pictures by talking to an artist or people portrayed in the pictures using voice recognition. Furthermore, the system operates through movement and location of the user, and it generates sensation such that the user feels he/she is in the pictures, thus actively appreciating the pictures. As the first step toward this system, we have developed a system that provides learning information to the user by actively talking using ukiyo-e. Here, we quantitatively evaluate this system for primary schoolchildren and determine whether the user is interested in the pictures while talking to the pictures using voice recognition measured by electrodermal activity. In this paper, we summarize the current system and describe two evaluation results.

In this study, we present a museum exhibit guide system that uses a tangible user interface: Live Biblia. Based on the visitor’s learning interests, museum exhibits are sorted and mapped by the system. Thus, it is possible to create a unique viewing map for the visitor, unrestricted by the existing exhibit environment. We describe the development and evaluation of the implemented Live Biblia prototype, which provides exhibit information based on selected material objects. We conducted evaluation experiments to examine the system’s effectiveness. The results suggest that the interface prototype using physical objects spurred participants’ interest in paleontology and facilitated effective museum exhibit learning. Additionally, we found that presenting information in the prototype animation aroused the participants’ motivation to learn and supported the viewing of not only the single fossil object but also the related museum exhibits.

We have developed a full-body interaction game that allows children to cooperate and interact with other children in small groups. The intent of the full-body interaction game developed in this study is to encourage cooperation between children. The game requires two children to jump together with the same timing. We let children experience the game, and observed the children using several strategies to coordinate the timing of their jumps. These included shouting time, watching each other, and jumping in a constant rhythm as if they were skipping rope. In this manner, we observed the children playing the game while cooperating with each other. Therefore, the game enabled children to experience cooperation with others by using body movements.

We are developing an immersive learning support system for paleontological environments in museums. The system measures the physical movement of the learner using a Kinect sensor, and provides a sense of immersion in the paleontological environment by adapting the surroundings according to these movements. As the first step toward realizing an immersive learning support system for museums, Yoshida et al. developed and evaluated a prototype system. However, their system cannot learn about certain paleontological features such as the names of extinct animals and their characteristics. Therefore, we developed an improved version of this system that allows for an enriched knowledge of paleontological environments, focusing in particular on extinct animals and plants and the ecological environment. Here, we evaluate the system’s learning assistant and immersive features insofar as they are directed toward children in primary school. This paper summarizes the current system and describes the evaluation results.

This study proposes an observation guide to support zoo visitors’ scientific observation of animals in motion by providing viewpoints through animations. One of the difficulties that visitors experience when observing animals is that they do not sufficiently understand the functions and behavior of the body parts of the animal they are seeing. The guide aims to enhance visitors’ understanding by resolving this issue through the use of animations of the functions and behaviors of parts of animals’ bodies. To evaluate the guide, we had kindergarteners and elementary school students use its contents on seals while observing their hind flippers, noses, and claws at the Asahiyama Zoo. Our finding was that the guide was an effective means to enhance the children’s understanding of the functions and behaviors of these parts of the body.

This paper proposes a method for separating the voice of a signal person from the voices of multiple speakers' in a mixed recording. When the sounds of multiple speakers are present when a voice recognition system is operating, the quality of speech recognition decreases. The proposed method separates the sound of multiple speakers using signal processing techniques and a microphone array. The position of the speaker is also required; however, the microphone array cannot be used for this purpose. Consequently, the position of the speaker was determined using the Kinect V2 depth image sensor. An experiment was performed to separate a signal voice from many voices. The results of the experiment show that, it is possible to separate two voices using the proposed technique.

We created a new hearing device called "VibGrip(VG)". The name VG came from the concept of Vib(ration) Grip. The VG has 5 piezoelectric elements mounted on a small housing that make it possible to feel the vibrations of different frequency bands with each finger. As an application of this device, we have developed a system that can sense the difference in sounds made by insects. Using a combination of speakers and the VG, we expect that a person with hearing impairment will be able to sense the information from the sounds more clearly.

This paper presents a support system to assist learning within museums. Museums represent important places of scientific learning for children. However, because the main learning method in museums is the study of displayed specimens and their corresponding explanations, the motivation of a child to learn is low. Hence, we are developing an experience-based learning support system such as entertainment that will enable learners to enhance their motivation to learn in any museum. We develop two systems to realize experience-based entertainment. One is "Live Biblia," which is a digital installed book system that uses real fossil. Another is the immersive learning system we called "Body Experience and Sense of Immersion in Digital paleontological Environment" or "BESIDE," which enables learners to explore a virtual paleontological environment. In this paper, we present a summary of the current system of Live Biblia and BESIDE.

In this paper, we propose and develop a full-body interaction system and simulation game called â??Human SUGOROKU,â?? which helps elementary school students learn about vegetation succession while having fun. We found that the students became more involved in the game because they were required to play it using their body movements. An experiment conducted with students verified that the participants became immersed in the virtual world of vegetation succession while playing Human SUGOROKU. This paper describes the structure of our game and the results of its evaluation.

The authors developed a computer-animated "interactive museum" to improve observers' levels of interest and immersion during the exploration of virtual paleontological environments. In the system, animals on the screen move in synchronization with the observer's actions, and hence, the observer feels as though he/she has entered a real-life paleontological environment. In this paper, in order to enhance the immersive experience, we upgraded the system based on the results of past preliminary evaluation. In the upgraded system, animals on the screen animate whenever an observer walks across the screen, and the animal under observation changes in response to the observer walking backward or forward towards the screen. In this way, the observer becomes part of the virtual paleontological environment. Then, in order to verify the upgrade's effectiveness, we conducted an evaluation. The results indicated that the upgrade of the system was effective in immersing observers because of the fidelity of the simulation and the enjoyment afforded by moving one's own body.

This study proposes a mobile support system "Stamp-On" to promote elementary school children's scientific inquiry into museum exhibits. The unique characteristic of Stamp-On is its use of a stamp-shaped interface to connect exhibits and mobile device content in an extremely simple way. In this paper, we first describe the principles and implementation of the Stamp-On system. Then, we evaluate the performance of the Stamp-On system at a various rock exhibitions. For the evaluation, 35 Japanese sixth-grade elementary school children (aged 11-12) used the Stamp-On system. We recorded the actions and utterances of one of them during their scientific inquiry process. To clarify the effectiveness of Stamp-On, we have analysed the following two factors in the scientific inquiry processes: 1) observing subjects attentively and 2) interpreting information obtained through the observation. Based on these analyses, we conclude that Stamp-On is effective to promote scientific inquiry among children.p>

This study proposes a system for supporting the Shotoku Taishi game, which is a language play game that uses the voice of children. The Shotoku Taishi game is a group game in which multiple people presenting a problem vocalize different words at the same time and the respondents are required to guess what the combination of the words is. The authors developed and implemented a system using a microphone array to extract the voice of a specific person presenting a problem in this game. The participants were 36 elementary school students whose native language was Japanese. The results showed that the participants were enjoying the Shotoku Taishi game and that this group activity was a creative activity that deepened their awareness of the Japanese language.

The purpose of this study was to develop a tablet PC version of a system that promotes the learning of knowledge and skills related to science teaching, and to investigate its effectiveness. The characteristic feature of this system is that it supports collaborative learning through discussions based on case method materials by a manga (comic strip). The system makes students read scenes of a children’s experiment displayed on the screen in the form of a manga. Touch operations on parts of interest enable students to point pins. Pins are color-coded in four colors. Students use the share functions to share awareness with each other and hold discussions to solve problems. We conducted an experimental evaluation with university students who intended to become elementary school teachers. The evaluation showed that the proposed system is effective in promoting discussion through the sharing of awareness.

This paper proposes Stamp-On, a mobile guidance aid for museum visitors. Stamp-On equips a tangible interface in the form of a stamp, which is used as an input-device for visitors to show explanations on a mobile device such as an iPad. The explanations will give the corresponding information about exhibiting items with additional questions. By touching the screen of the mobile device with the Stamp-On near the corresponding item, she or he will get visual information. We have conducted a preliminary experiment with participants of school teachers in order to evaluate the effectiveness as an exhibition guidance system. The results have suggested that Stamp-On system is an attractive and effective learning aid for elementary school children visitors of a museum.

We enhanced and evaluated a system for visualizing and sharing the students’ commitment to multiple ideas that runs on the iPad/iPad mini. This system has the following two functions: a) the function for the student to represent his/her commitment to multiple ideas, and b) the function to count the distribution of the students’ commitment. We conducted a science lesson using this system targeting Japanese sixth grade elementary school students. Students were asked to input their commitment to the ideas each time they conducted an experiment. Subsequent to drawing the line the second time, the whole class discussed the commitment situations using the counting function. After the lesson, we investigated students’ impression about the usability of the system and class discussion using the counting function. The results showed that this system was quite easy to use and effective in supporting learning that focuses on tracking the process of commitment change.

This paper proposes a simulation-based learning support system that animates extinct animals in synchronization with a human’s location and actions. The system provides learners with a near-real body experience, and the sense that they have entered the paleontological environment. The aim of the proposed system is for this experience to improve the learning effect. Obviously, it is impossible for learners to experience the actual paleontological environment, and it is therefore difficult for them to understand the link between this environment and its actuality. This difficulty can be decreased by the proposed system, which provides learners with a real body experience and sense of immersion. At this point in time, the authors are implementing a system based on the proposed concept. As a preliminary evaluation, we conduct an experiment using the system, and interview the participants about the improvement in the learning effect. The experimental results confirm that most learners feel a tangible improvement in the learning effect due to the enjoyment of moving their body during the learning process.

In this study, we developed a simulation game called "Human SUGOROKU" that consists of a full-body interaction system to enable elementary school students to enjoy and learn vegetation succession. The students' sense of immersion is improved by enabling them to play this game using their body movements. We conducted an experiment with the students and investigated the affects of the full-body interaction through interviews. The results showed that the full-body interaction promotes a sense of immersion in the game. This paper describes the structure of this system and the interview results.

In this study, evaluation experiment was conducted on an interactive puppet theater, a puppetry system designed for deaf children to enhance their enjoyment of performances. An interactive puppet theater has two features: a feature that ensures the transmission of information by textualizing dialogue information and a feature that encourages deaf children to participate in the story by using physical movements. For this study, experiment was conducted to evaluate whether the feature of participation in the story by using physical movements prompts these children to engage with the story setting in a puppet theater viewing experience. The evaluations were also aimed at ascertaining whether this feature could ensure an enjoyable viewing experience. This study targeted deaf children. The results obtained from the experiments revealed that this feature could be an effective way to encourage them to participate in the story setting, and to assist them in having an enjoyable viewing experience.

We developed a full-body interaction digital game “Human SUGOROKU”. Th is game enables elementary school students to enjoy and learn vegetation succession by playing simulation game with their body movement. We conducted this game to elementary school students and effects of the system were investigated with questionnaires. The result showed that the full-body interaction promotes a sense of immersion in the game. This paper describes the structure of this game and the questionnaire results.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the ‘Pocket Plant Guide’ qualitatively through interviews. We allowed Japanese sixth-grade elementary school students to use the ‘Pocket Plant Guide’ in order to identify and observe plants. We interviewed the students to investigate their subjective impressions of using this guide. The results indicated that this guide was effective in supporting the identification and observation of indicator plants.

In this study, we examined the feature of the audience participation in the progress of the story in Puppet Theater. Puppet Theater is a puppet show system developed that is designed for appreciation by hearing-impaired children. Wada et al. (2012) conducted preliminary evaluation experiments performed with 52 healthy elementary school children who were surveyed using both questionnaires and interviews. The results indicated that audience participation in the progress of the story had the effect of encouraging the audience to think about the story. It was also confirmed that, through this participation, the audience is imbued with a sense of emotional investment in the characters, which stimulates audience into immersive participation in the story.

We are developing a digital game, "Human SUGOROKU," in which enables game players as pieces to learn vegetation succession. In order to realize this game, it is necessary to robustly measure 3D position of people and identify them. In this paper, we proposed a method for 3D position measurement and identification of people by integrating ultrasonic sensors and Kinect sensors. The evaluation results show that proposed method is more robust than methods using ultrasonic sensor and Kinect sensor separately.

The authors developed a smartphone-based Pocket Plant Guide to support the outdoor learning of vegetation succession, and evaluated the utility of this device by administering a questionnaire to 35 elementary school children. The results indicated that the Pocket Plant Guide not only functions as a supportive learning tool, but also offers a user-friendly interface.

This paper describes a system called GENTORO that uses a robot and a handheld projector for supporting children's storytelling activities. GENTORO differs from many existing systems in that children can make a robot play their own story in a physical space augmented by mixed-reality technologies. A user study conducted in collaboration with elementary school children and teachers indicates that GENTORO's features can enhance children's embodied participation in, and their level of engagement with, their storytelling activities, and can support children in designing and expressing creative and original stories

KEI-Time Traveler is a system using commercially available phones equipped with GPS. It enables students to do fieldwork with a visit to a past environment from the corresponding location in the present world. Students experienced such fieldwork to visit the site of a landslide disaster in 1938. We evaluated the system and found that KEI-Time Traveler enhanced motivation and helped students learn about their local area's history.

This paper describes the new design of the exhibition support system in a museum. ldquoIt is a support system which can be suitable individually in a learner's diversity and situation.rdquo The loudspeaker array system can form the high-sound pressure area. This area is called sound spot. The loudspeaker array system is a noncontact sound interface. In this paper, the effectiveness of this system is verified for science education. The two experiments are conducted. First experiment, the effectiveness of sound information and paper information are compared. The comparison between explaining exhibition by texts and sounds is performed at the museum. We search the effective of explaining by letters and sound by questionnaire and quiz of examinees. Second experiment, the ease of listening is compared by the loudspeaker array system and a loudspeaker. We search the effective of ease of listening by questionnaire. In all the experiments, elementary school students are targets. A participant is a sixth grader from a third grader.

We developed a new system called CarettaKids that supports face-to-face collaborative learning by children. CarettaKids uses a sensing board based on the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology to support collaboration in a shared space, and the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) device to support activity in personal spaces. We also introduced this system into an actual classroom environment to evaluate its performance in support for children's collaborative learning, by analyzing the childrens' interaction. As a result, we have confirmed that CarettaKids's feature of transition between two spaces, makes it possible for children to reflect on problems detected in the shared space so as to find solutions in their respective personal space, and to engage in an active exchange of opinions in the shared space, based on ideas generated from personal-space learning.

The purpose of this study is to develop the software that supports the externalization of ideas, reflection on thinking processes, and dialogues with oneself and with others during collaborative concept mapping. The characteristic functions of this software include the following: (1) playback: the software automatically saves the concept mapping process, and the learner can playback it at any time, even in the middle of the process; (2) improvement: the learner can return to any desired point in the concept mapping process by undoing it up to that point and improve the concept map; and (3) collaborative concept mapping: the learner can make a concept map in collaboration with others sharing the same screen on several computers linked to the same network. Twenty-four elementary school teachers were asked to evaluation this software in the questionnaire in terms of the usability of the software, convenience of the user interface, feasibility of collaborative concept mapping and playback of the collaborative concept mapping process, effectiveness of the functions, usability in lessons. Analysis of their responses demonstrated that many of the teachers highly evaluated the software in all aspects.