Intersubjective meaning making: a common ground for Human-Computer Interaction and the Learning Sciences?

Recent experimental and design studies of collaborative learning mediated by tabletops has foregrounded equality of interaction at the verbal and the physical level, while intersubjective learning has been back-grounded. However, the embodied interaction analysis of video footage, from ten months of single-touch screen interaction among 8-9 year-old children presented here, shows that while the constraints of single-touch screens does not support equality of interaction at the verbal and the physical level, there seems to be an intersubjective learning outcome. More precisely, the constraints of single-touch screens offer support for intersubjective meaning making in its ability of constraining the interaction. By presenting a short embodied interaction analysis of 22 seconds of collaboration, I illustrate how an embodied interaction perspective on intersubjective meaning making can tell a different story about touch-screen supported collaborative learning.