This paper presents a research-through-design study into
interactive systems for a primary school setting to support
teachers’ everyday tasks. We developed an open-ended
interactive system called FireFlies, which is intended to be
interacted with in the periphery of the teacher’s attention and
thereby become an integral part of everyday routines. FireFlies
uses light-objects and audio as a (background) information
display. Furthermore, teachers can manipulate the light and
audio through physical interaction. A working prototype of
FireFlies was deployed in four different classrooms for six
weeks. Qualitative results reveal that all teachers found a
relevant way of working with FireFlies, which they applied
every day of the evaluation. After the study had ended and
the systems were removed from the schools, the teachers kept
reaching for the devices and mentioned they missed FireFlies,
which shows that it had become part of their everyday routine
7th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction
