Designing with Young Children: Lessons Learned from a Co-creation of a Technology-Enhanced Playful Learning Environment

Borum, Nanna; Brooks, Eva; Brooks, Anthony Lewis

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-20889-3_14

Cited by 8 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Technology and engineering also offers opportunities for contextualised learning about real world issues, developing skills and habits of mind such as creative problem-solving, visualising, systems thinking, analogical thinking and invention (English et al, 2017;Lewis, 2009). Interesting and valuable work is also being carried out with children in terms of co-creating design for assistive technology (Light, Page, Curran & Pitkin, 2009), participatory design of learning environments using technology-assisted learning through play (Borum, Brooks & Brooks, 2015), and broader development of design literacies through involvement for example in spatial design (Green, 2013). These projects demonstrate the potential for innovative learning with and through technologies as well as through Technological and Engineering Education.…”

Section: Introduction and Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Abridged International Perspectives of Technology Education and Its Connection to STEM Education

Wright

Reeves²,

Williams³

et al. 2018

IJE

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STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) areas are integral content disciplines in all economies. Although most countries have and continue to ensure quality science (S) and Mathematics (M) education for primary (elementary) and secondary school students, the technology (T) and engineering (E) content areas tend not to be regarded as core to national curricula in the same way that science and mathematics are regarded as essential. This article discusses efforts in various countries to better promote and integrate Technology and Engineering Education (TEE) in schools. This paper highlights common themes and argues that we can learn from each other’s efforts in TEE. We argue that dialogue across nations can help us to build international STEM education collaboration networks, better understand the nature of STEM and how to better engage pupils and students in STEM subjects, and work towards gaining inputs to national TEE policy that can leverage positive change.

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Section: Introduction and Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Abridged International Perspectives of Technology Education and Its Connection to STEM Education

Wright

Reeves²,

Williams³

et al. 2018

IJE

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Methods that involve informants or partners have been broadly adopted with children aged five and older (Fails 2012, Walsh et al 2013, but that is not the case with children under the age of five. Researchers who have attempted to include preschoolers as informants have had to address challenges due to young children's developmental characteristics such as their social and communication skills, their ability to understand abstract concepts, and to sketch their ideas (Borum et al 2015).…”

Section: Criteria For Classificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In all, the children participated directly in four sessions (excluding those in which they were solely being observed). (Borum et al 2015). Borum et al (2015) noted difficulties while adapting the Bags of Stuff method.…”

Section: Hour Workhopmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(Borum et al 2015). Borum et al (2015) noted difficulties while adapting the Bags of Stuff method. In addition, the researchers also had challenges using the Mixing Ideas approach because it was difficult for young children to draw ideas for user interfaces.…”

Section: Hour Workhopmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The examples above made useful contributions toward understanding how to work with children under five in the role of informants in the technology design process. Researchers who wish to include children under the age of five as informants or partners, must address the challenges with children's social and communication skills, their limited ability to understand abstract concepts, and to sketch their ideas (Borum et al 2015). The review suggests there is currently a gap and a need to develop new design methods for this age group that consider the particularities of young children's needs, abilities, and interests.…”

Section: Hour Workhopmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Play-based design

Pantoja¹

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Young children in the United States are widely using technology at ages 3 and 4, but to date there are no well documented participatory design methods for including this age group in the development of technologies. A few attempts at using methods designed for older children were unsuccessful. To address this gap in methods, this research developed Play-based Design, a novel participatory design method inspired by make-believe play in the style of Tools of the Mind, an evidence-based preschool curriculum. Play-based Design first sets the context for play and design through stories. It then enables children to plan play by selecting roles and contribute their ideas as they act and speak during make-believe play activities in which they interact with other children, voice agents, adult facilitators, and generic props. This research includes four sets of design sessions with 3-4 year old children. The first provided the design of StoryCarnival a web-based app to set up Tools of the Mind style play. The second set of design sessions led my research team through the development of voice agents to support Tools of the Mind style play as it happens. These two sets of sessions provided inspiration and insight for using StoryCarnival combined with voice agents to support design activities for technologies with physical and social components. The last two sets of sessions gave me an opportunity to understand whether Play-based Design could be applied to obtain design requirements from children for technology unrelated to make-believe play by focusing on obtaining ideas for Internet-of-Things applications in the home. The research presented in this dissertation required an interdisciplinary journey through child development theories, storytelling for children, graphic design, qualitative methods, software development, and related approaches from the literature. Participant observations, group discussions, and video analysis were used to collect and analyze data. Results from the last two v sets of design sessions focused on obtaining ideas for Internet-of-Things technologies to provide evidence that Play-based Design can enable 3-4 year old children to contribute their ideas to the design of technologies. More specifically, in this dissertation, I provide supporting evidence for my thesis statement: "When applied to participatory design sessions with young children, Playbased Design can: (1) allow young children to express their ideas through make-believe play, which is a developmentally appropriate activity; (2) enable children to act out design ideas or verbally express them by conversing with researchers or voice agents; (3) support fluid communication between adult researchers and children; and (4) inform the design of technologies that facilitate activities that have social and physical components (e.g. tangible user interfaces, voice agents, IoT)." vi PUBLIC ABSTRACT Young children in the United States are using computers that were not necessarily designed for them. Currently, some of the results of this premature acc...

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