Storytelling systems: constructing the innerface of the interface

Although recent years have seen an explosion in educational technology, there is still a lack of computational tools specifically designed to encourage exploration of identity and communication issues. Storytelling is a good medium for this type of exploration as it enables reflection about the inner world. The paper presents a novel approach to interactive storytelling: SAGE (Storytelling Agent Generation Environment), a construction kit that supports children´s creation of their own wise storytellers to interact with. In this system, programming is a vehicle for the transformation of ways of thinking about communication as well as for constructing knowledge about technology. In order to encourage children´s emotional engagement in the SAGE environment, the storytellers are embodied in an interactive stuffed animal-a soft interface-which is also programmable by the children. The paper presents some technical aspects of SAGE´s design and implementation and focuses on empirical results from research with children using SAGE