AERA Thursday: Young Children and Creative Technologies

SIG-Advanced Technologies for Learning

Scheduled Time:Thu,
Apr 14 - 10:35am - 12:05pm Building/Room: Marriott
Montreal Chateau Champlain / Viger, Section C

Scheduled in: Young
Children and Creative Technologies

Abstract: Educational technology is increasingly common in
early childhood classrooms (Sarama & Clements, 2002), where one often sees
children using educational computer software or games during “free choice
time” (Wang & Ching,
2003). For the most part, however, typical uses of technology in early childhood
have yet to address the strong need for young children to connect their learning
with personally meaningful activities and with their communities (Corsaro,
1985; 1997; Rogoff, 1990). The papers in this symposium address this need through
integrated technology activities in early childhood contexts which are relevant
to children’s social worlds, feature constructivist and interesting technology
applications such as digital cameras, visualization, and computer-controlled
robotics, and provide opportunities for children’s creativity and self-expression.

- X.
Christine Wang, wangxc@buffalo.edu SUNY–Buffalo
Chair

• EC=early childhood


• young children's use in classroom is limited, so there is an urgent need
  to address


• projects scaffold children's learning

Digital
Cameras as Tools for Technology Integration and Perspective Shifting in an
Early Childhood Classroom by Cynthia
C. Ching, X.
Christine Wang, Yore
Y. Kedem

• importance of social interaction in young Children


• debate over age-appropriateness, and benefits and drawbacks for social
  connectedness


• kids socialize when using technology


• technology should be integrated into culture of the classroom and curriculum
  (everyone agrees -- except me. I think it should be the opposite.


• project: use digital camera to create digital photo journal in iPhoto


• documentation and reflection research is on visual literacy, scientific
  archiving, instant video revisiting, etc -- mostly focused on getting kids
  to be more objective viewers; their project wants them to be more subjective,
  or examine their subjectivity.


• a one day project. kids carry and use it for one day only.


• integration: students took their camera into "uncharted" territory
  (not just next to the computers; and the more powerful computer, where iPhoto
  was, became more meaningful, when it was being used. (duh!)


• Negotiation: children used photography to gain access to "forbidden" physical
  and social spaces (power)


• Content: some girl focused on close friends, while no boys did.


• Situated thinking: kids related to how the pictures related to classroom
  time and space


• girls gave emotions to their subjects; boys tended to state things more "objectively"


• children don't consider "technology integration" -- for them,
  it's always been part of the world.


• Is technology a context or a tool and catalyst?

Expanding
and Deepening the Views: Using Visualization Programs in Art Classrooms by Sarah
Banach, X.
Christine Wang

• Sarah speaks:


• interested in using technology for art education


• considers art an educational necessity


• (horrid presentation skills and slides for an art educator)


• Montessori and Peabody


• is art a vehicle for other subjects, or is it its own subject? (should
  be former says me)


• Design of the van Gogh Visualization program


• 9 elements of art & design: emphasis, unity, line, form, shape, value,
  balance, texture, proportion


• icons came from van Gogh's painting of a bedroom -- not so meaningful by
  themselves.


• Christine speaks:


• methodology and data-analysis (this is the stuff I find boring)

I have to stop listening and do some work now...

"Constructing
a Joint Story-Writing Space: Young Children’s Collaborative Writing
at Computers" by Ya-Hui
Chung (Illinois Urbana Champlain)

• sociocultural perspective L&W 1991, rogoff 1990, Vygotsky 1962, 1978)


• Stubbs 1983, classic definition of discourse


• Cazden 2001, Erickson and Mohatt


• Camtasia is a program to record the computer screen


• Kid Pics Studio Deluxe allows animation, slideshows, video, etc?
  (haven't seen KP in awhile..


• (need to bring speakers when you give a video cut) -- smart! to use the
  microphone!! I like this presenter!!!


• (oh, oh, move on...)


• showing a side-by-side video of kids on computers and the computer screen
  was cool!


• peer scaffolding: the task, the dyad


• collaborative attitude from "I " to "we"


• another video clip! Amazing!!


• higher functioning kid takes leadership role, as teacher role to other.


• kids created picture and wrote story to explain the picture


• computer screen is object of reference


• too long -- time constraints...


• cazden 2001 p.15.


• very good research methinks.

Sorting
It Out: Building a Lego-Logo Culture With Young Children by Dean
J. Grosshandler (postdoctoral fellow at Michigan State)

• setting: Odyssey Center for Education (1992-2002)


• an intimate space for children to work on their own projects (he suggests
  that a culture formed there)


• 90 minute - 3 hour sessions


• mixed age, small classes, grades 2-8


• when the kids got too old to participate, he hired some of them as mentors/co-teachers


• kids worked primarily with Lego pieces and Logo programming language


• parts ecology -- not unlimited Legos, so kids had to disassemble theri
  own and others' creations. Also had to learn sharing resources, and negotiating


• had four computers too, for programming.


• research question: what does the role ofg artifacts in a learning environment
  tell us about the goals and values of the participants? AND How do
  artifacts in a learning environment shape the culture


• Dewey's framework of learning


• Bruce and Peyton 1993


• Clandinnin and Connely 2000)


• Stake 1995 Case study


• Constructionism Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (Michael Cole), Legitimate-Peripheral
  Participation,


• Cognitive Apprenticeship (Rogoff)


• Dewey's Four interests of the child:
  
  
  
  • find things out
  
  
  • communicate
  
  
  • construct
  
  
  • express self artistically
  
  
  
  


• Bartholomew quote is so very cool!!!!!!!


• GET THIS PAPER!!!


• Findings: Use of artifacts in lab supported participants claims regarding
  the nature of the lab.

My thoughts: This is very cool! Papert, Dewey, Eisenhart,
etc. all wrapped together here with Legos!

- Douglas
H. Clements, clements@buffalo.edu,
SUNY–Buffalo, Discussant

• creativity vs. "Computer Logic" -- computers will stifle creativiy
  -- (not true)


• composition


• kids benefit from reflection, but need memory aids in order to do so.


• (unit of analysis has to be the classroom?)


• what are the triangulations? Did you search for disconfirming points?


• creativity is a loose family of outcomes -- what is the definition of creativity?


• creativity is diminihed in classrooms as children are programmed