Date of Award

6-16-2024

Document Type

Thesis

Publisher

Santa Clara : Santa Clara University, 2024

Department

Computer Science and Engineering

First Advisor

Sharon Hsiao

Abstract

Parents often use technology as a digital pacifier or source of entertainment for their children. While excessive screen time for children can be harmful, a digital future seems inevitable. As technology becomes more prominent in everyday life, children should utilize their early years to engage with technology in a way that develops their growing minds. AR Storybook is an interactive storybook that strives to provide children with an active learning experience. The story teaches children computational thinking skills through augmented reality activities embedded into the plot. The activities ask the user to help a character complete a task by using a computational thinking skill. The skills taught are algorithmic thinking, pattern recognition, and decomposition. There is a physical and digital version that allows parents to be involved in the learning process to prevent excessive screen time. We used Adobe Illustrator to write and illustrate the book, Blender to create the 3D models for our augmented reality activities, and 8thWall to host the activities. Overall, we found that parents want their children to learn computational thinking skills. These children are already using technology, so our product simply redirects their focus to enrich their use of technology.

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