Many children and short project timing: how TERENCE harmonized these conflicting requirements

Involving children in the software design and development processes (using e.g., the user centered and the participatory design methodologies) is nowadays considered a key factor to obtain an accessible and usable technology enhanced learning system; but how children have to be efficiently involved is still an open question. In this paper we report the experience of a FP7-ICT European project, TERENCE, aimed at developing a system for improving text comprehension in children 7-11 years old. Our experience suggests to extend the repertoire of inquiry techniques with a new one able to harmonize two conflicting requirements of real projects: many children to involve vs project strict timing.