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The Ambient Horn: designing a novel audio-based learning experience

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Abstract

The Ambient Horn is a novel handheld device designed to support children learning about habitat distributions and interdependencies in an outdoor woodland environment. The horn was designed to emit non-speech audio sounds representing ecological processes. Both symbolic and arbitrary mappings were used to represent the processes. The sounds are triggered in response to the children’s location in certain parts of the woodland. A main objective was to provoke children into interpreting and reflecting upon the significance of the sounds in the context in which they occur. Our study of the horn being used showed the sounds to be provocative, generating much discussion about what they signified in relation to what the children saw in the woodland. In addition, the children appropriated the horn in creative ways, trying to ‘scoop’ up new sounds as they walked in different parts of the woodland.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been carried out through the EPSRC-funded EQUATOR Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration EPSRC GR/N15986/01 (http://www.equator.ac.uk). We would particularly like to thank our partners from Sussex (especially Rowanne Fleck), Southampton, Bristol and Nottingham, and participating teachers and pupils from Varndean School, Brighton. Further support was provided by Hewlett Packard’s Art and Science programme.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Bristol, Bristol, BS8 1UB, UK

    Cliff Randell

  2. Department of Informatics, University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9QH, UK

    Sara Price, Eric Harris & Geraldine Fitzpatrick

  3. School of Informatics, Indiana University, USA

    Yvonne Rogers

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  1. Cliff Randell
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  2. Sara Price
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  3. Yvonne Rogers
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  4. Eric Harris
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  5. Geraldine Fitzpatrick
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Correspondence to Cliff Randell.

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Randell, C., Price, S., Rogers, Y. et al. The Ambient Horn: designing a novel audio-based learning experience. Pers Ubiquit Comput 8, 177–183 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-004-0275-x

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