Designing Tangible Multimedia for Preschoolers based on Constructivist and Cognitivist Learning Theories

Abstract

Since its emergence more than 20 years ago, the digital form of presentation deprives multimedia of natural and tangible elements that allows children to learn in an intuitive way. Based on the idea of constructivist and cognitivist learning theories, tangible objects play a substantial role in learning and cognition growth of young children. Taking the strength of tangibility affordance of physical objects, a prototype of tangible multimedia that embraces the use of tangible objects named TangiLearn has been designed. In this paper, we revisit the idea of tangibility brought forward in the two compelling learning theories, followed by a brief discussion on how Tangilearn is designed. A relevant case study has been conducted and study finding revealed that TangiLearn provoked the preschoolers’ learning outcomes.