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Alexandra Covaci
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3 records found
1
Conference paper
(2026)
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Elaine Czech, Luma Tabbaa, Xiang Li, Sophia Ppali, Yvonne Cullen, Chee Siang Ang, Himanshu Verma, Alexandra Covaci
In underserved coastal communities, the adoption of digital technology is deeply stratified. While schools with high socio-economic status (SES) leverage technology for creative agency, under-resourced schools often face a second-level digital divide, where hardware is treated as a disruption rather than a tool for inquiry. We investigate this dynamic through an exploratory study of a digital arts programme in low-SES UK secondary schools, in which Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) researchers served as advisors and observers of a co-created partnership between schools and a local digital arts charity. Our findings reveal a pedagogical chasm. Systemic constraints and assessment pressures force teachers into the role of risk-averse behavioural gatekeepers, while external facilitators manage the creative play. However, we identify how students bridge this gap by establishing peer infrastructures, shared talk and repair work that transform technical breakdowns into possibility spaces for learning. We argue that sustainable integration requires designing for school settings to empower the human relationships central to creative technology use.
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In underserved coastal communities, the adoption of digital technology is deeply stratified. While schools with high socio-economic status (SES) leverage technology for creative agency, under-resourced schools often face a second-level digital divide, where hardware is treated as a disruption rather than a tool for inquiry. We investigate this dynamic through an exploratory study of a digital arts programme in low-SES UK secondary schools, in which Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) researchers served as advisors and observers of a co-created partnership between schools and a local digital arts charity. Our findings reveal a pedagogical chasm. Systemic constraints and assessment pressures force teachers into the role of risk-averse behavioural gatekeepers, while external facilitators manage the creative play. However, we identify how students bridge this gap by establishing peer infrastructures, shared talk and repair work that transform technical breakdowns into possibility spaces for learning. We argue that sustainable integration requires designing for school settings to empower the human relationships central to creative technology use.
Reclaiming Creative Exploration
An in Situ Study to Support Process-based Learning Through Digital Making in Low Socioeconomic Schools
Conference paper
(2026)
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Elaine Czech, Luma Tabbaa, Xiang Li, Sophia Ppali, Yvonne Mary Cullen, Chee Siang Ang, Himanshu Verma, Alexandra Covaci
Secondary school systems often reward predictable, mark-bearing performance, making experimentation feel risky, especially in under-resourced contexts, where time, attention, and materials are tightly managed. We report on an exploratory case study of a charity-led digital arts programme delivered in two low-socioeconomic secondary schools in which immersive (i.e., Virtual Reality) and non-immersive (i.e., tablet-based) digital tools were introduced into Year 7 (400+ pupils, typically aged 11-12) curriculum. Through thematic analysis of the lesson observation notes and student surveys, we show that pupils take more creative risks, value exploration, iterate more, and increasingly learn through and with peers. We characterise shifts in classroom ecology, including shared talk, turn-taking, micro-tutorials, and practices of care and repair that help sustain learning-in-process. Finally, we analyse the breakdowns and trade-offs of deploying off-the-shelf creative technologies in low-resource school routines, and derive deployment lessons for resilient, bottom-up creative technology curricula that fit everyday classrooms.
...
Secondary school systems often reward predictable, mark-bearing performance, making experimentation feel risky, especially in under-resourced contexts, where time, attention, and materials are tightly managed. We report on an exploratory case study of a charity-led digital arts programme delivered in two low-socioeconomic secondary schools in which immersive (i.e., Virtual Reality) and non-immersive (i.e., tablet-based) digital tools were introduced into Year 7 (400+ pupils, typically aged 11-12) curriculum. Through thematic analysis of the lesson observation notes and student surveys, we show that pupils take more creative risks, value exploration, iterate more, and increasingly learn through and with peers. We characterise shifts in classroom ecology, including shared talk, turn-taking, micro-tutorials, and practices of care and repair that help sustain learning-in-process. Finally, we analyse the breakdowns and trade-offs of deploying off-the-shelf creative technologies in low-resource school routines, and derive deployment lessons for resilient, bottom-up creative technology curricula that fit everyday classrooms.
The Playful Potential of Digital Commensality
Learning from Spontaneous Playful Remote Dining Practices
Conference paper
(2022)
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Khawla Alhasan, Eleonora Ceccaldi, Alexandra Covaci, Maurizio Mancini, Ferran Altarriba Bertran, G. Huisman, M. Lemke, Chee Siang Ang
With one-person households being increasingly common and Covid-19 lockdown policies forcing people to stay home, remote dining has become common practice for many, who take it as an opportunity to connect with others in times of loneliness. Sharing meals online, also known as digital commensality, is a rich form of interaction, where people leverage technology to achieve a sense of connectedness and belonging while eating. In this paper, we look at digital commensality and we explore its inherent playful potential with the aim to inspire the design of engaging technologies that can support, enhance and augment this form of interaction. For this, we used a situated play design approach to document and analyze the behavior of 36 people (including pairs of friends and strangers) sharing meals online. Our analysis surfaced a set of play potentials of remote dining - i.e., playful things people already do and enjoy spontaneously while sharing meals online. We present those play potentials as inspirational material: they can motivate and enrich the design of future digital commensality technologies by responding to people's desire for playful and social interaction with, through, and around food.
...
With one-person households being increasingly common and Covid-19 lockdown policies forcing people to stay home, remote dining has become common practice for many, who take it as an opportunity to connect with others in times of loneliness. Sharing meals online, also known as digital commensality, is a rich form of interaction, where people leverage technology to achieve a sense of connectedness and belonging while eating. In this paper, we look at digital commensality and we explore its inherent playful potential with the aim to inspire the design of engaging technologies that can support, enhance and augment this form of interaction. For this, we used a situated play design approach to document and analyze the behavior of 36 people (including pairs of friends and strangers) sharing meals online. Our analysis surfaced a set of play potentials of remote dining - i.e., playful things people already do and enjoy spontaneously while sharing meals online. We present those play potentials as inspirational material: they can motivate and enrich the design of future digital commensality technologies by responding to people's desire for playful and social interaction with, through, and around food.