This paper describes the notion of Mobile Urban Drama and how a particular production is implemented to support engaging experiences via location-based mobile phone software. Mobile Urban Drama is a general concept that has been adapted for out-of-school learning projects by introducing support for solving assignments and producing multimedia-based documentation for learning purposes. Media production is seamlessly supported through a context-aware media management system. The Mobile Urban Drama project, "HasleInteractive", is presented. It supports biology, geography and math lessons for 7th to 9th graders in schools. The story is an environmental thriller that takes place partly on the pupils' mobile phones and partly in the real world - in nature, which must be investigated through exercises. The level of pupil engagement is evaluated through interviews with teachers and pupils, as well as an analysis of pupil productivity and produced media materials during the interactive Mobile Urban Drama experience. It is argued how the out-of-school learning features are successfully supported by the system, and we conclude that the level of productivity and engagement is higher than in usual pupil group work.

In this abstract I describe the doctorial research project "Interaction Design for Public Spaces". The objective of the project is to explore and design interaction contexts in culture related public spaces such as museums, experience centres and festivals. As a perspective on this domain, I will focus on the usage of the body as an interaction device. Furthermore, the project will involve a dramaturgic take on communication and design of interactive systems in the pursuit of new ways to stage the interactive contexts. The outcome of the project will be guidelines and conceptual frameworks which will help interaction designers when designing for bodily movement, and communicating and staging interactive content in public spaces.

This paper discusses the application of three spatial multimedia techniques for communication of art in the physical museum space. In contrast to the widespread use of computers in cultural heritage and natural science museums, it is generally a challenge to introduce technology in art museums without disturbing the art works. This has usually been limited to individual audio guides. In our case we strive to achieve holistic and social experiences with seamless transitions between art experience and communication related to the artworks.

This paper describes a novel interactive floor application suited for hearing impaired children with a cochlear implant (CI). Existing linguistic learning materials for CI children are restricted to analogue books and CD ROM application in which bodily interaction is rather limited. The paper highlights the relation between language and body movement and proposes interactive floor technology as a foundation for CI children's linguistic learning. The Stepstone application described in this paper combines body movement and group collaboration as a mean for practicing and enhancing speech and language skills for CI children in a school environment. Two Stepstone games for CI children are presented: the Stepstone Ling Game helping the children to calibrate their cochlear implants, and the Stepstone Language Game which is a framework for language concept training.