Learning by playing Supporting and guiding story-creation activities

In this paper, we describe an architecture for supporting and guiding children story-creation activities. Stories and story telling activities are present in all children developmental stages, assuming distinct roles in each stage. Within the scope of this research, our target population is children aged 7-9 years old, within the portuguese education context within which we are working, for whom story-telling activities assume a more structured format. At this developmental stage, children are more prone to rule-based games, in which they tend to create their own rules or even compete inside them. Our approach is based on the assumption that by experiencing different situations children at this stage are able to develop: (1) their notions of narrative; and (2) their social skills and interpersonal relationships. To achieve such goals we are developing a general architecture, which may be applied in different story creation applications, that aims at supporting and guiding children in the collaborative story-creation process. Simultaneously, we want to trigger some moments during which they are able to reflect on the narrative, which may lead the children to analyse, criticise and revise their own story decisions.