In this article, we draw on assemblage theory to investigate how children aged 5 engage with different material surfaces to explore ordinal and relational aspects of number. The children participate in an activity in which they first interact with a strip on the floor, then with a multi-touch iPad application, to work with numbers in expressive…

This systematic review provides an overview of existing evidence regarding the effect of touchscreen technology on young children's learning. Using PRISMA principles, we identified 53 studies in our review. The literature generally advocated positive effects of touchscreen devices on young children's learning with 34 studies reporting positive…

This paper draws upon the theory of embodied cognition to provide a robust account of how gestural interactions with and around multi-touch tabletops can play an important role in facilitating collaborative meaning-making, particularly in the context of science data visualizations. Embodied cognition is a theory of learning that implies that…

Protein ORIGAMI (http://ibg.kit.edu/protein_origami) is a browser-based web application that allows the user to create straightforward 3D paper models of folded peptides for research, teaching and presentations. An amino acid sequence can be turned into a-helices, ß-strands and random coils that can be printed out and folded into properly scaled…

Virtual manipulatives are an emerging intervention to support students with disabilities in mathematics. Through a multiple probe across participants design, researchers examined use of an intervention package consisting of a virtual manipulative (i.e., the Two-Color Counter app-based manipulative) and the system of least prompts (SLP) to support…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of free rotate gesture used in multi-touch screen design on pre-school children's achievement in learning shape. Multi-touch screen design enables users to perform multiple finger gestures such as free rotate, pinch and spread. The gestures are often selected because it is similar to…

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is an easy to use neuroimaging technique that is portable and maintains a liberal tolerance to movement. As such, fNIRS represents an ideal tool to observe children's neural activity as they engage in real-world classroom activities, such as the interaction with digital math apps on an iPad. Here, we…

The goal of this study is to analyze undergraduate elementary school pre-service teachers' conceptions and misconceptions of physical and virtual manipulative materials using an interpretive "framework." The "framework" involved the use of the "Concrete," "Pictorial" and "Abstract cognitive levels"…

Understanding mathematical concepts is important for all students, although often challenging for many students with disabilities. Historically, educators have used concrete manipulatives to support and build conceptual understanding. Mobile devices provide a valuable option to support students with disabilities in mathematics through app-based…

The purpose of this study was to contribute to the research on mathematics app use by very young children, and specifically mathematics apps for touch-screen mobile devices that contain virtual manipulatives. The study used a convergent parallel mixed methods design, in which quantitative and qualitative data were collected in parallel, analyzed…

Several studies have investigated children's engagement with repeating pattern tasks, but few have related to patterns with ABA as the minimal unit of repeat. This study focuses on identifying intuitive characteristics of children's work as they engage with repeating pattern tasks of different structures, focusing on the differences between ABA…

Manipulatives are a common tool in mathematics teaching and learning, including for students with disabilities. The most common manipulatives are concrete manipulatives, yet app-based manipulatives are a viable age-appropriate option for secondary students with disabilities. Through an adapted alternating treatment design with three middle school…

The purpose of the inquiry was to understand how children in primary grades (i.e., preschool, kindergarten, and second grade) engaged with affordances and constraints of features in a Base-10 Blocks virtual manipulative mathematics app designed to promote learning opportunities. Researchers conducted one-to-one interviews with 100 primary grade…

Elementary students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) who struggle with mathematics may be limited in opportunities to pursue advanced mathematics potentially impacting post-school outcomes, including postsecondary education and employment opportunities. Interventions that provide visual instruction, such as manipulatives, along with systematic…

This paper explores how a young child (56 m) builds an understanding of the cardinality principle through communicative, touchscreen-based activities involving talk, gesture and body engagement working via multimodal, touchscreen interface using contemporary mobile technology. Drawing upon Nemirovsky's perceptuomotor integration theoretical lens…