A framework for identifying and developing children's creative thinking while coding with digital technologies (original) (raw)
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Lessons from using iPads to understand young children’s creativity
Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood
This article explores the use of iPads as part of a child-centred data collection approach to understand young children’s creativity. Evidence is presented from a small study of three- to five-year-old children’s creative play. Analysis of the children’s engagement with iPad video diaries and free-to-use tablet applications was logged across two early educational settings over a three-month period. The findings suggest that iPads offer a mechanism to allow children to articulate their creative play and to encourage involvement in the research process. However, bespoke research software to use with early years children is required to improve this process.
Creative problem solving is essential to technology education. In our research project we explored the suggestion that creativity may need to include a time of ‘non-thinking’ during which innovative responses to problem tasks are generated. The period of non-conscious cognitive process (NCCP) time is considered to be when the brain makes connections between independent ideas and when inappropriate responses can be forgotten, allowing more relevant responses to be made available for problem solving. Our research provided an opportunity for several primary school teachers to focus on enhancing creativity in technology education and to explore the notion of the NCCP time for creative problem solving. In this chapter we review the current literature on enhancing creativity and comment on how the teachers fostered creativity as they implemented a design, make and appraise technological task to produce recycling devices in their classrooms. Classes and children were observed and teachers ...
Play and creativity in young children's use of apps
British Journal of Educational Technology
This study is the first to systematically investigate the extent to which apps for children aged 0-5 foster play and creativity. There is growing evidence of children's use of tablets, but limited knowledge of the use of apps by children of children of this age. This ESRC-funded study undertook research that identified how UK children aged from 0 to 5 use apps, and how far the use of apps promotes play and creativity, given the importance of these for learning and development. A survey was conducted with 2000 parents of under 5s in the UK, using a random, stratified sample, and ethnographic case studies of children in six families were undertaken. Over 17 hours of video films of children using apps were analysed. Findings indicate that children of this age are using a variety of apps, some of which are not aimed at their age range. The design features of such apps can lead to the support or inhibition of play and creativity. The study makes an original contribution to the field in that it offers an account of how apps contribute to the play and creativity of children aged five and under.
2015. Exploring play and creativity in pre-schoolers’ use of apps – Final project report
This 203pp report describes the results of a survey of 2000 parents (47% families including a child aged 0 to 2 and 52% families including a child aged 3 to 5) who had access to a tablet device. The survey was undertaken in early 2015. The report provides detailed information on the background to the study, main findings and appendices with details of the survey questions and analyses of responses. The study is the result of a collaboration between the Universities of Sheffield and Edinburgh, CBeebies, Dubit, the children's television production company Foundling Bird and Monteney Primary School, Sheffield. The project was funded by the ESRC Knowledge Exchange Opportunities programme (ES/M006409/1). More information at www.techandplay.org. Citation for the report: Marsh, J., Plowman, L., Yamada-Rice, D., Bishop, J., Davenport, A., Davis, S., Robinson, P. and Piras, M. (2015) Exploring Play and Creativity in Pre-Schoolers' Use of Apps: Final project report. Sheffield: University of Sheffield.
2018. [open access] Play and creativity in young children's use of apps
British Journal of Educational Technology , 2018
This study is the first to systematically investigate the extent to which apps for children aged 0-5 foster play and creativity. There is growing evidence of children’s use of tablets, but limited knowledge of the use of apps by children of children of this age. This ESRC-funded study undertook research that identified how UK children aged from 0-5 use apps, and how far the use of apps promotes play and creativity, given the importance of these for learning and development. A survey was conducted of 2000 parents of under 5s in the UK, using a random, stratified sample, and ethnographic case studies of children in six families were undertaken. Over 17 hours of video films of children using apps were analysed. Findings indicate that children of this age are using a variety of apps, some of which are not aimed at their age range. The design features of such apps can lead to the support or inhibition of play and creativity. The study makes an original contribution to the field in that it offers an account of how apps contribute to the play and creativity of children aged five and under.
Medium for Children’s Creativity: A Case Study of Artifact’s Influence
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2014
This paper reports on an exploratory study that investigates 16 elementary school children's interaction with two different mediums for creativity, LEGO® bricks and paper collages, drawing on the previous creativity assessment test carried out by Amabile [1]. The study is based in a playful learning theoretical framework that is reflected in the means for analyzing the video material inspired by Price, Rogers, Scaife, Stanton and Neale [2]. The findings showed that the children explored the two mediums to the same degree, but that they were more structured in their planning and division on labor when working with LEGO bricks. It was also evident that the children assigned preconceived affordances to the two mediums. The results from this study should feed into to a technology enhanced playful learning environment and these are the initial steps in the design process.
Learning from play: design and technology, imagination and playful thinking
1997
This paper considers what children can learn from play and explores what can be learned from a comparison between play and design and technology (D&T) teaching. Three fundamental functions which are common to children's play and D&T are discussed: 'mastery orientation' and the development of autonomy; 'decentration' and the development of flexible thinking and, finally, mediation and the development of forms of representation. The High/ Scope approach is described as an example of an early years curriculum which actively supports these functions of play and the relevance of this approach to the teaching of D&T is considered. It is argued that D&T teaching, like play, can help to promote creative, critical and playful thinking by helping children to internalise and develop their imagination. It is also argued that the development of imagination is dependent on learning to use tools of thought and that these tools evolve as they are used in playful, innovative ways.
Exploring Play and Creativity in Pre-Schoolers' Use of Apps. End of Project report
This report outlines the key findings of a co-produced study, developed in collaboration between academics at the Universities of Sheffield and Edinburgh, the BBC (CBeebies), Monteney Pirmary School and the children’s media companies Dubit and Foundling Bird (Appendix 1 outlines the project team members and Advisory Board members). The project was co-produced in that all project partners contributed to the development of the project aims and objectives and were involved in data collection, analysis and dissemination. The aim of the study was to identify pre-school children’s (aged 0-5) uses of and responses to tablet apps in terms of the impact on their play and creativity. It was felt that the need for the project was significant, given evidence of growing access for young children to tablets that are able to host apps. Ofcom (2014) has reported that 65% of 3-7 year-olds live in a household with a tablet computer (Ofcom, 2015:23). The National Literacy Trust (NLT, 2014) undertook a survey of 1,028 children aged three to five in 2013. They found that 72.9% have access to a touch-screen device in the home, a figure which includes smartphones. Whilst these data are very useful, neither study examined the types of apps that children aged under 5 in the UK use and little is known about how apps are used by pre-school children. This lack of knowledge is of concern, given that this is large, and growing, market. It was reported by Shuler in 2012 that 72% of the top-selling apps in the Education section of Apple’s app store were aimed at the pre-school age group and, therefore, some account should be taken of how apps are chosen and used by families of pre-schoolers. In addition, there have been repeated calls regarding the urgent need for research into the media and technology use of this age group (Buckingham, 2005; Gillen and Cameron, 2010; Holloway, Green and Livingstone, 2013). Whilst there has been a range of studies of pre-schoolers’ use of apps, these have largely focused on storybooks (Kucirkova, 2013; Merchant, 2014) or on educational use in early years settings (Lynch and Redpath, 2012), and not specifically focused on an analysis of play and creativity. Play in the digital world is becoming increasingly complex due to children’s use of technologies and this use creates synergies between online and offline and digital and non-digital play (Burke and Marsh, 2013; Marsh, 2010, 2014; Marsh and Bishop, 2014). There is emergent evidence that use of tablets by the under 5s can promote creativity and play (Verenikina & Kervin, 2011), but further research is required on the types of creativity and play they foster. Theories of play as a complex, multi-faceted phenomenon, which encompasses various rhetorics including play as identity, imagination and power (Sutton Smith, 1997), were employed in the study. Digital technologies have been found to impact on play in a number of ways. Firstly, digital technologies can offer a platform for the use of games embedded in hardware that promote both rule-bound play and free play (Plowman and Stephen, 2005). Secondly, digital technologies can be a stimulus for imaginative play, such as physical play based on characters and narratives encountered in video games or virtual worlds (Marsh, 2014; Marsh and Bishop, 2014). Thirdly, digital technologies can be used in children’s play as objects e.g. children using smartphones to make pretend phone calls (Plowman et al., 2012). The primary focus for this project was the way in which the use of apps promotes play. Hughes’s (2002) taxonomy of play was utilised to identify episodes/ aspects of play. These classifications of play were adapted for a digital environment (see Appendix 2).
Creative Technologies as a Conduit for Learning in the Early Years
Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 2012
THIS PAPER DESCRIBES THE use of robotics in an Early Years classroom as a tool to aid the development of technological skills in a creative environment rich with literacy and numeracy opportunities. The pilot project described illustrates how a three-phase process can result in: (1) the development of emergent literacy and numeracy, and (2) the development of digital literacy and digital access for Early Years learners. The pilot study was conducted in a combined Prep–Year 1 class over a six-week period, during which students were introduced to and engaged in the creation of robots and simple machines via the use of LEGO WeDo©. The pilot was designed around three distinct phases: modelling, exploring, and evaluating. These phases provided scaffolding for the students to engage with the technology and for the class teacher to develop her own skills. This use of WeDo© is unique to Australia, unique to Early Years, and marries hands-on, fine-motor development with 21st century learning...