NFC-based interactive learning environments for children

Near Field Communication (NFC) technology enables interactive, participatory learning applications that integrate digital learning material seamlessly to our everyday environment. NFC permits tagging objects in the environment and interacting with applications by touching the tagged objects with mobile devices. Touching a tag triggers an application in the mobile device to perform an operation that is related to the touched object. In this paper, we report how NFC can be used to create interactive applications that help children in their learning process and persuade them to do physical exercise. We report fully working applications we have developed to support children in learning to read, in learning a foreign language, in studying biology, and one application developed to persuade children to run outdoors.