User manual | Moving Beyond the Debate on Technology and Young

Moving Beyond the Debate on Technology and Young Children

Warren Buckleitner

Children’s Technology Review

Welcome

Agenda

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The debate about technology and young children.

•

What kind of child do we want to raise?

•

Examples.

•

What is a screen?

•

Assessing quality

•

The NAEYC position statement.

About me:

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One of six kids, grew up and taught in Michigan, live in

•

BS Elementary Education, CMU

•

MA Human Development, Pacific Oaks

•

Ph.D., Educational Psychology, Michigan State

University

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Sr. Consultant, High/Scope Foundation

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Preschool and elementary teacher (yes, I made snacks)

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Reviewer: CTR, Scholastic Parent & Child, New York

Times.

I attempt to be objective, but please see: http://childrenstech.com/about/disclosures and make up your own mind.

•

Parent of two daughters.

•

Member of the “B’s” NAEYC Technology Interest

Forum.

•

One of many who advised on the NAEYC position statement. http://childrenstech.com/files/2011/05/g3-‐1.pdf

The debate

Did you hear about kids and digital media?

… it promotes learning ...

See Henry Jenkins’ “transmedia,” www.henryjenkins.org or Mark Prensky’s “digital natives.” (www.markprensky.com)

You’ve no doubt longed for some of MacArthur Foundation’s five-year, $50 million digital media and learning money? See http://digitallearning.macfound.org

… it makes kids smart! ...

… is healthy ...

See www.healthgamesresearch.org

to learn about Robert Wood Johnson’s

$8.25 million Health Games Research initiative.

… it’s unhealthy ...

A lot of energy and media attention goes to keeping kids “safe.” Groups like the Coalition for a Commercial Free Childhood, the Alliance for

Childhood remind us that technology use with children should be studied.

… it causes mental illness...

Extensive research review by Rowan indicated that many of children’s school performance issues were related to increased use of TV, videogames and internet. As child developmental delays and behavior disorders continued to escalate, Rowan stepped away from the school setting and developed Zone’in Programs Inc. home to

Zone’in Products

Workshops

, and

Training

… kids use it a lot.

“Today, 8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week). And because they spend so much of that time 'media multitasking' (using more than one medium at a time)

they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes

(10:45) worth of media content into those 7½

hours.

I read all these studies and think, what does it all mean. And then I ask a kid “does technology make your life better” and they say...

http://www.kff.org/entmedia/mh012010pkg.cf

What kind of child do we want to raise?

Technology behaviors

Less desirable More desirable

Technology behaviors

Less desirable More desirable

•

Unhealthy (defined by you) use of video games, inappropriate content.

•

Puts tech ahead of people.

•

Fearful.

•

Unaware of the power.

•

Confident.

•

Controls rather than controlled by the technology.

•

Understands ads, google ads, Facebook sponsors and online profiles.

•

Can handle a debit card.

WASHINGTON — A married congressman from upstate

New York resigned suddenly Wednesday after a scandal erupted over emails and a shirtless photo supposedly sent to a woman in response to a Craigslist dating ad.

Writing a Children’s Book

Becoming President

A Child as Tree

Solving Global Warming

Technology is like Fertilizer....

Access to quality, developmentally appropriate technology at each stage can increase a child’s chances of bearing fruit.

But too much can burn the plant.

View it from a theoretical framework:

How would each see technology?

Lev Semenovich

Vygotsky (1896-1934)

Abraham Maslow

(1908-1970)

BF Skinner

(1904-1990)

Text

Jean Piaget

(1896-1980)

Sergey Brin, Google Co-Founder, Talks About his

Montessori Education, and His First Computer

Technology examples

Prenatal: Text4Baby.org

Babies & Toddlers

Birth to 2

Rattles, toys & apps like doorbells, piano keys and light switches, high in cause/effect that are “food for the senses.”

Symbolic representations less effective at this stage, especially if non-interactive or are low in child control.

A mellow cat.

Sound Shaker

Builds music, melody, rhythm, causality. zinc Roe Design. www.zincroe.com

$2. Ages 2-4.

Preschool

3-to 5-Years

Tools for creative expression.

Offer a choice of easy-to-use, well designed apps and video games, on various platforms like the iPad, Nintendo DS,

Leapster, MobiGo or iPod Touch. Let them develop a sense of “I know how to make this work” through play.

Digital cameras

Keyboards

Bedtime stories.

Toontastic, $3, Launchpad Toys (iPad) being used by a preschooler

Moo Baa La La La!

Builds language. Loud Crow Interactive. $3. Ages 2-5.

SpinArt

Turn your iPhone screen into beautiful paint-splattered mess with this simple, fun program. Turn your iPhone screen into beautiful paint-splattered mess with this simple, fun program. While there is no iPad version, it still works fine on on either sized screen. Builds art, creativity, logic (spatial relations). Brian Smith. www.7twenty7.net $1.99. Ages 3-up.

Early Elementary

5 to 9 Years

Search engines with filtering.

Social games like Pokémon.

A Wii, PS3 or Kinect, for social play.

A steady supply of fresh apps.

Technology to support emerging passions.

Upper Elementary

8 to 12 years

Programming experiences, like Scratch.

Cameras & video editing

Free, supervised access to a reliable laptop with a working browser, exposure to both

Mac and Windows.

High doses of love and supervision.

Art Academy

Transforms your Nintendo DS into a sketch pad, complete paints and pencils. Step-by-step tutorials which introduce ideas like sketching, shading and perspective. If using on a Nintendo DSi you can use the built-in cameras to take pictures of the things you want to sketch. Builds drawing, painting. Nintendo of America. www.nintendo.com $20. Ages 8-up.

Teens

Ages 13-up

A smart phone w/video camera and if possible, a data plan.

Their own laptop.

Facebook/Twitter/email/Google

Video and photo editing, word processing.

Open all channels of communication, from smoke signals to SMS to

Skype.

Access to emerging products.

Solar System

Builds science, astronomy, the solar system, planets. Touch Press. www.touchpress.com $14. Ages 7-up.

What is a screen?

Non Interactive vs.

Interactive

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kleeman/a-screen-is-a-screen-is-a_b_792742.html

“The truth seems self-evident; all screens are not created equal.”

The View from Moore’s Law

An Amazing History!

Moore’s Law Meets Literacy — Some Key Events

Source: Children’s Technology Review database -- see complete references at http://www.childrenssoftware.com/articles/history.tech.literacy.html

Accelerated Reader

Speech to text

Voice Recognition

Soliloquy Reader iPad

Microsoft Office

Hyperstudio

WordStar

Word Perfect

Bank Street Writer

Mindstorms/LOGO

Google

Pokémon

CD-ROM

TVs become HDTVs

PS3

Xbox 360

Nintendo Wii

MMPGs

Dustin

Heuston forms

WICAT

Living Books

Reader Rabbit

ECHO Speech synthesizer

Internet

LeapPad

Flash/Starfall.com

Netbooks

IMing

Decline of

Educational

Software iPod Touch iPhone

Nintendo DSi

Tag/Tag Jr

Kindle

FLY Pen

Computer

Intel ClassMate

Leapster

Pixter

2000 2005 2008 2009 2011

iPad Effect

“Pillars” of the iPad:

1. Multi-touch

2. 10 hour batteries

3. Internet

4. 13,000 apps (an army of programmers)

5. stereo speakers

6. gyro and accelerometer

7. Oleophobic screen

8. $500 and up

“The iPad is the computer we always wanted.”

Ann McCormick, Founder, The Learning Company

Kindle (Amazon)

Nook Kids (bn.com)

Sony Reader Pocket Edition

Beyond the Tablet

VTech

V.Reader

FLIPS The Bubonic Builders, Electronic Arts

Tag Reading System

InnoPad from V.Tech (coming this fall)

Leapster Explorer

(coming this fall)

Google’s Android

Moterola XOOM (top)

Samsung Galaxy Tab (right)

Microsoft Kinect

Nobody will uninvent the iPad

h$p://ecetech.wikispaces.com/Taxonomy+of+Touch

“Taxonomy of Touch”

See also: Yahoo’s Nate Koechley’s “Taxonomy of Touch” talk on slideshare h$p://www.slideshare.net/natekoechley/taxonomy-‐of-‐touch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO80404kKvQ iPad Baby Mashup

Symptoms of lower quality interactive media

✓

Buggy

✓

Laggy

✓

Talks too much

✓

Evil

Draw a line to connect each product to its rating

My Baby Einstein App

Disney

Dinosaur Train Eggspress

PBS Kids

Wheels on the Bus

Duck Duck Moose

Draw a line to connect each product to its rating

My Baby Einstein App

Disney, $3.99

Dinosaur Train Eggspress

PBS Kids, $2.99

Wheels on the Bus

Duck Duck Moose, $99

1. Buggy

The lesson for publishers?

Don’t release your cake before it is baked.

Reality test with people other than relatives.

Once your app is live, nip errors in the bud.

2. Laggy

Charley Harper's Peekaboo Forest

Night & Day Studios. $1.99

AKA Unresponsiveness

Lesson for publishers?

Keep it “crisp.” If you put something on the screen that looks interesting, a child is going to want to touch it.

Pets are responsive

Lesson for publishers?

Increased feelings of control increases engagement.

The HOME button has made children “app browsers.”

A child’s best friend, an app developers worst nightmare.

3. Talks too much

Buckleitner, W. (2006). Exploring the RelaQonship Between SoRware Interface InteracQon Style and

Child Engagement. Early EducaQon & Development, Fall 2006.

Search on “buckleitner dissertaQon”

Three times more tasks attempted

HR Tasks LR Tasks

Twice the correct answers

HICHILD Correct HICOMP Correct

4. Evil

“The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Theologian

What is “Evil” in children’s IM?

1. Selling faster development, sans valid research.

2. Mixing commercial and educational agendas.

3. Turning young children into “page view mules.”

4. Teasing with freemiums or velvet ropes.

5. Holding artwork, pets or coins hostage, until parents pay the ransom.

6. Taking advantage of a child for pure financial gai n.

Exploiting children to make a funny video for

YouTube

“At Pocket Gems, We’re Serious

About Fun”

Pocket Gems develops free-to-play mobile games that are ridiculously fun. We were founded in

2009 by Daniel Terry and Harlan Crystal

, engineers and gaming industry outsiders, who wanted to bring the excitement of social gaming to the mobile platform.

We have two missions:

•

Build the world’s best mobile engineering team – Mobile is the platform of the next decade and gaming will feature some of the most compute- and memory-intensive applications. We want to be the place to work for engineers who are as excited about pushing the limits of mobile hardware as we are. Think that sounds fun? So do we. Check out our jobs page if you’d like to work with us.

•

Become a global leader in the mobile entertainment industry – Over the past 20 years, entertainment has evolved. What once existed only on the TV screen or computer monitor now fits in the palm of your hand. This platform enables experiences never before possible and represents the next wave of innovation in entertainment. Using a combination of creativity and analytics, we want to expand that frontier by delivering the most engaging mobile experiences available.

With recent funding by Sequoia Capital, we have the resources to be able to pursue these goals and build upon our successful track record.

Book or Catalog?

A Code of Ethics for the Publishers of Interactive Media for Children (http://dustormagic.wikispaces.com)

• I won’t sell development , e.g., “smarter, brainy kids,” without references.

• I won’t hold a child’s work hostage , as an incentive to renew a subscription or purchase an additional product.

• I’ll understand the difference between informing and selling , especially when embedding brand names or when dealing with the public school system.

• My product or service will treat every child the way I’d treat my own.

Evaluation Instrument for eBooks

Children’s Interac0ve Media Evalua0on Instrument, Adapted for Ebooks

KEY: A = Always, equals 1 point. SE = some extent = .5, N = never, or 0 points. NA means “not applicable”

I. EASE OF USE (Can a child pick it up and make it work?

Does it enhance feelings of control?)

A SE N NA

1__ __ __ __ The experience starts quickly with a minimal introducQon that can be skipped.

2__ __ __ __ There is an obvious path to the ﬁrst page.

3__ __ __ __ The experience feels crisp and responsive, enhancing a child’s feelings of control.

4__ __ __ __ Pages are easy to turn or ﬂip, forward or backward.

5__ __ __ __ Page turn icons are easy to spot.

6__ __ __ __ A “return to main menu” icon is easy to spot.

7__ __ __ __ It is easy to jump to another page, anywhere in the ebook.

8__ __ __ __ If there is a “read to me” mode, it is easy to stop and get back to the main menu to turn it oﬀ

(you don’t feel trapped).

9__ __ __ __ It is easy to adjust the sound.

II. EDUCATIONAL VALUE (What does the child walk away from the experience with, that he/she didn’t have when he/she came to the experience?)

1__ __ __ __ Embedded reinforcements are used, to support the story or the learning.

2__ __ __ __ The challenge level can be adjusted.

4__ __ __ __ Games and animaQons support the story.

5__ __ __ __ Language enrichment techniques are used.

6__ __ __ __ If the Qtle is a reference, there is an index and the ability to search by keyword.

7__ __ __ __ A child can record their own narraQon.

8__ __ __ __ Labeling is clear and directly linked to the ﬁnger touch.

9__ __ __ __ There are ways for a child to represent their experience, e.g., through creaQve expression.

IV. ENTERTAINMENT VALUE (How “fun” is the experience?)

1__ __ __ __ Hot spots provide surprises.

2__ __ __ __ Children will want to return to the experience.

3__ __ __ __ There’s enough content to keep a child interested.

4__ __ __ __ There’s enough challenge.

V. FEATURES (Consider the current “state of the art” in children’s ebook design)

1__ __ __ __ Fonts are easy to read.

2__ __ __ __ Text is narrated, and if possible, sounded out.

3__ __ __ __ Bookmarking is used, so a child can come back the same point where he/she leR oﬀ.

4__ __ __ __ It is possible to save your work.

5__ __ __ __ Language translaQon features are available.

6__ __ __ __ Sounds, such as page ﬂips, can be turned on or oﬀ.

7__ __ __ __ It is easy to ﬂip a page forward and backward.

8__ __ __ __ You know how “thick” the “book” is.

There is some indicaQon of how many pages are in the book, or how long the story is.

9__ __ __ __ Music can be easily toggled on/oﬀ, and doesn’t invade a child’s imaginaQon.

10__ __ __ __ In-‐app sales, if used, can be locked away from a young child.

11__ __ __ __ External links are limited to the “about us” menu.

12__ __ __ __ Credits idenQfy the publisher, author, narrator and producing studio, along with a physical address and valid contact informaQon.

IV. VALUE (Rate the ebooks value, comparing compeQQve products)

1 = Low 10 = High

__ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Buckleitner, W., (2011). Children’s InteracQve Media

EvaluaQon Instrument, Adapted for Ebooks. Children’s

Technology Review, January 2011, Vol 19, Issue 130.

h$p://childrenstech.com.

To help you remember

Elements of Quality

Easy t o use

Makes you feel powerful quickly -‐-‐ starts quickly, responsive, reversible,

Minimum User Competency (MUC) is below child’s developmental level, can jump around between pages, over the shoulder help, minimal or no instrucQons

EducaQonal

You walk away with something valuable; a skill or competence you didn’t have when you came to the experience.

•language

•math/logic

•art/music

•science

•social

•geography

Entertaining

Challenging, novel, full of discoveries, social

Features

Preferences let you customize. If it is free, you can lower your expectaQons.

Value

What does it do vs. how much does it cost?

“False Choice”

A false dilemma (also called false dichotomy , the eitheror fallacy, fallacy of false choice, black-and-white thinking or the fallacy of exhaustive hypotheses) is a type of logical fallacy that involves a situation in which only two alternatives are considered, when in fact there are additional options . (per wikipedia)

Technology is bad, so if you use it with children you’re also bad.

So if you don’t use technology with young children, you’re good.

Education is full of false dichotomies.

Whole language vs. phonics

Constructivism vs. behaviorism