TAP & PLAY: An end-user Toolkit for Authoring interactive Pen and Paper Language Activities

Hybrid paper-digital interfaces are a promising approach for supporting language activities. The familiarity of pen and paper makes it a particularly attractive media for many user groups, including young children. Digital pens enhance interaction with traditional paper content by playing and recording audio and recognizing handwriting and gestures. Currently, generating custom interactive paper documents involves some programming, limiting its use by many user groups (e.g., educators and families) who might especially benefit from application of hybrid paper-digital interfaces in their practices. To address this need, we developed an enduser Toolkit for Authoring Pen and Paper Language Activities (TAP & PLAY). This paper describes the iterative development of the toolkit, its accessibility for novice non-technical users, and use in three different contexts for early language learning. We demonstrate and document the system's usability, generality, and utility for people who want to create and tailor their own custom interactive paper-based language activities.