Abstract:

Newcomer children may feel devastated by the enormous change in their lives because of immigration. The tweens, in particular, may face a crucial period because they are forming their identities. They may face an internal conflict; this kind of conflict may affect their personality. Thus, not only it will affect their social interaction in the community, but also it may affect their academic life. They will feel worried regarding their performance in school and socializing with their friends. Some classroom activities need cooperation between the student group and encourage teamwork, which may be challenging for some newcomer children. While there are traditional approaches of education and support used to help these children realize their new environment and adjust to it, there is a lack of research on the use of new digital interactive technologies. In this case-study paper, we present a usability evaluation of a cooperative Game-Based Learning Stronger Together designed to improve newcomer children’s and especially tween’s teamwork skills and enhance their cooperation between their society and themselves. Preliminary results support our hypothesis that this GBL is an effective tool to help enhance Newcomer tween’s understanding of teamwork, thus cooperating better with their friends.

Keywords:

Newcomers, Tweens, Children, Technology, GBL, Human-Computer Interaction, Cooperation Game, social adjustment.