My main takeaway from my visit to Barron Park was that the teacher is the key component of a successful maker space. Ms. Kolhatkar has identified the needs of her students and develops projects that will interest them, not always necessarily using the flashiest and newest technology. The Margolis, Goode, and Chapman article mentions that the “secret sauce” of success is “passionate, creative teachers who are interested in the problem solving of computer science, with a variety of secondary subject credentials.” The issue of access to these teachers is vital to the success of the Maker Space movement.

Most of the children interviewed in the Barron, Martin, Takeuchi, and Fithian don’t even need to make it to school to learn about computer science–they have parents that are well-connected in the technology industry. For instance, we have stories of Alex’s father expressing his colleagues’ interest in reviewing his son’s code or the parent who paid his daughter $25 to debug his software. Only in the wealthy enclaves of Silicon Valley could these kind of experiences be viewed as a possibility.

What about all the other kids? How can the fantastic learning opportunities of students with fantastic maker space instructors and tech savvy parents be made available across the economic spectrum? I saw that Marc also posted this excellent video: https://vimeo.com/110616469. Leah Buechley’s talk really gets at the heart of the issue–it is up to the Maker Movement’s leaders (who are mainly teachers themselves) to expand access. Perhaps its an unfair burden to ask of overtaxed educators, but without a true step towards equality in representation, the Maker Movement will fail precisely because of its success with wealthy engineers. This group has effectively blocked others from joining.

]]> https://ed342.gse.stanford.edu/week-9-response-3/feed/ 0 https://ed342.gse.stanford.edu/week-8-informal-science-learning/ https://ed342.gse.stanford.edu/week-8-informal-science-learning/#respond Thu, 25 Feb 2016 06:55:32 +0000 http://ed342.gse.stanford.edu/?p=1547 This week’s readings looked at how scientific habits can be formed, fostered, and adapted. Crowley et al.’s look at parents’ explanations to their children featured specific, though “inconclusive,” evidence of its findings that parents explain scientific phenomena more to boys than to girls. Parents have go beyond simply bring their children to the museum, they must overcome gender stereotypes in order for their daughters to have the same relationship to science as their sons. Is this something that museum facilitators could be trained to encourage in the museum? If children of all genders receive the same explanations, they can develop scientific reasoning, a skill they just might need to play WoW.

While video games were considered “torpid” by researchers of the past, Steinkuehler and Duncan find that WoW can actually be a place of learning, specifically in informal science literacy. By giving these players a platform for collective knowledge gathering, they learn from each other about how to play the game. The knowledge does not come from above, but can be the result of one player’s shared experience which is then debated and built upon by other players. This kind of community collaboration could definitely be used for “bridging third places” — Steinkuehler’s name for the space between school and home that allows for student learning.

Zimmerman and Land discuss the design guidelines that can be used in these “third places,” specifically in place-based learning at the Arboretum. These researchers find some really compelling applications of place-based informal learning. However, I still struggle with this approach: how much is the app a distraction from the nature at hand? Is it important that the kids learn outside? In different life stages, would they learn as much in an informal discussion with mom and dad or as a player in a video game with an active scientifically minded-community?

I downloaded the YouTube Kids app and searched for “Cool Math Games.” Unsurprisingly, most of the content that came back were videos of kids playing the games on the Cool Math Games website. This peculiar “watching” phenomenon is so huge, I can’t help but wonder if there’s some way to leverage watching videos of gameplay into a learning experience.

Based on the data from Zhang’s research, the kids that are searching for this content are among the lowest performing. Is there a way to connect them with the help they need? Perhaps a new study (based on the data that YouTube has on its users) could link those interested in coolmath-games with a program to encourage families working together on math problems at home, the very beneficial practice discussed in the Berkowitz et al. article, and could compare the achievement of those with and without this intervention.

That might be a robot toy like Sam for early literacy learners or it could be an open forum for recreating a favorite world. Fan Fiction is often dismissed as silly (see Twilight) but it’s also serious business (unfortunately, see Twilight.) Sharing interpretive work, whether it is about The Hunger Games or The Sims, is an important life skill. Teachers can help students grow research and editing abilities through content that is interesting to the individual student. Incorporating these online worlds could help students build and understand audience–a vital part of effective writing.

Jessie, Shelley and I are thinking about ways we can frame writing prompts for teenage girls into our final project for this class. These readings helped me contextualize the importance of free and creative storytelling for children of all ages.

Group: Corinne, Jessie, Shelley

The researchers identify two important factors that might block a success health-related game: first, few of these games are scientifically evaluated. The second is that the experts in the healthcare field are not focused on the fun.

One of the more interesting games that I’ve heard about which deals with mental health in a conceptual way is Minority Media’s Papo & Yo. The active role is that of a young boy in a Brazilian slum who escapes his abusive alcoholic father. He meets a character called Monster, who is at first helpful and friendly, but he hides an addiction. If he eats a frog, Monster turns into an uncontrollable creature and the boy is forced to find a rotten fruit that will temporarily cure Monster.  The gameplay is sparse, devoid of puzzles and the usual stream of villains to be defeated. Perhaps this game is not fun in the traditional sense, but it’s an engaging experience about the feeling of love and loss. There is no clear solution. The young boy must deal with this split personality and eventually leaves his friend when he realizes he cannot help Monster.

Papo & Yo received a great deal of praise upon its release in 2012. The creator of the game, Vander Caballero, was inspired by experiences from his own childhood. This personal element is the missing piece to creating a game that effectively teaches a lesson about mental health. In this case, that the player is not alone in his or her struggle. The game must have a place in reality, drawn from the actual stories of those who’ve dealt with mental illness. By leveraging the skills of a talented designer with life experiences, mental health professionals may be able to create a game that accomplishes their lofty goals of both educating and entertaining.

Colgan_Assignment 1

I explored Stardoll in our first day of class, but I was left with so many questions that I just had to go a bit deeper into this fascinating product. I’m not alone. According to the site’s homepage, 399,363,255 users make up “the largest online community for girls who love fashion.” Stardoll started in Sweden in 2002 as “Paperdoll Heaven” and is still based in Stockholm. Today, Stardoll is a global juggernaut, with gameplay available in 28 languages.

The first prompt on the website is to build your own Stardoll. Unfortunately, the issues start early. The start page shows dolls with a variety of different ethnic looks, giving a semblance of diversity. All of the doll options are thin and beautiful, with default “Barbie feet” ready for high heels. The doll is highly customizable, so it is possible to adjust the doll’s shape and weight, skin color, and gender, but these options are not made clear on the homepage.

Each Stardoll also comes with a room, a personal page, and “a welcome gift of 500 Starcoins.” Stardoll started as a virtual paper doll, so fashion is a major component of the game. Today, real world fashion brands like DKNY and Nelly.com feature their clothing on the site, available for virtual purchase using Starcoins.

Those Starcoins can be earned through gameplay, but they can also be purchased with actual money and then used in Starplaza, the in-game mall. The issue of using real money should be of interest to parents. Children need their parents’ credit card in order to buy individual items or a membership in this world. The account is free and it is possible to use the platform without spending money, but memberships—which turn the user into a “Superstar”—will cost an automatically reoccurring $6.95 a month.

Another area of parental concern is the “Chat and Friends” category which allows users the opportunity to chat with other Stardoll users and join clubs ranging from “ZacEfron” to “StopSealKilling”. As with all online games, users agree that they are at least 13 years of age or older to access the site. Of course, it’s very likely that there are users younger than 13 on the site.

Seemingly created for young children on the platform, a “KidSafe membership” allows access to all doll related activities and games, but blocks the message center, Guest Book, and other forums. It’s likely that this feature was developed based on parental feedback and issues related to cyberbullying. According to the website’s FAQ section, “We are always working hard to improve the safety and security at Stardoll.com. We continuously moderate the site and have several filters in place to avoid name-calling and bad language.” A violation of the code of behavior called the One Stop Rules will result in account termination.

Applying the “Criteria to Consider When Creating New Media Content for Children” to Stardoll is a difficult task. At almost every point, this tool reveals deeper issues within the game. The chat categories offer a community aspect to the game, where users can share the hard work they’ve done to create their dolls but can also speak more generally. Support might be found in clubs like “FamilyProblems,” but these open forums can be potentially dangerous places for unwanted sexual content or users pretending to be someone they’re not. Stardoll says it moderates these groups but with many millions of users, it seems very possible that troubling situations may slip through the cracks.

Unfortunately, I believe Stardoll helps children (though the site’s language frames the audience as girls) develop issues around body image and gender stereotypes that can cause difficulty throughout their lives. Rather than focusing on strong female characters, impossible beauty standards, makeup, and fashion are presented as the tools of the game.

Stardoll is a very fun and engaging site but in terms of value, it’s a capitalistic game. Stardoll is a money-making platform and its unlikely that the company is going to abandon its lucrative partnerships with real clothing brands. However there are possibilities for improvement.

In terms of artistry, Stardoll is actually an extremely well designed platform with beautiful graphics. The final dolls can be works of art and are exhibited as such in the Spotlight tab. As a former Barbie Fashion Design maven, I think fashion games can help children develop creative design skills. As it is now, the design category is limited to hair, fashion, interior and jewelry. This would be a great place for expanding the game.

The interior design interface offers a fairly robust option to design patterns, a process with mathematical applications. The design category could be much improved by including the option to create and build furniture. This could use 3D modeling to teach users geometry and spatial reasoning skills. Allowing users to move beyond fashion could open up additional graphic design, behavior design and engineering games within the platform.

In an ideal world, Stardoll would sever ties with fashion brands, build stronger characters for the much more diverse set of dolls, and explore the rich potential of arts-based learning games. While the new and improved educational Stardoll seems very unlikely, small changes could build on the existing artistic tools of the game to improve its learning potential. Stardoll has recently released its own line of mobile games. These games may offer more possibilities for creating more educational material that will depart from the issues of the main site. Stardoll isn’t going anywhere soon, so hopefully she can diversify her portfolio beyond fashion and makeup.

Since crafts in general and fashion specifically are so deeply tied to the female realm, I started wondering about ways that textile construction could move into a less gendered space. A tool like the LilyPad Arduino seemed like a promising way to make “soft wear” more universal, but a quick Google search revealed that the “LilyPond” website is no longer active and there seems to be little news from the formal community. Considering the long history of embroidery and sewing long before Fröbel, it seems unlikely that it will disappear in the future, but a great game, platform, and most importantly, an active community, could go a very long way in supporting more widespread adoption.

In “Putting Education in ‘Educational’ Apps: Lessons From the Science of Learning”, Hirsh-Pasek, Zosh, et. al describe the wide range of apps for children available today. It’s a refreshingly realistic view of the good and the bad, and more specifically, what differentiates the two. This is incredibly helpful for those of us interested in creating learning environments. Until this point, I had a lot of trouble making clear distinctions between what works and what does not.

The researchers highlight the importance of narrative in good apps. The enemy of narrative is distraction. As such, the educational games that work well keep the story moving, rather than offering all the bells and whistles, to reach better learning outcomes. Challenges that come seemingly out of nowhere tend to break concentration, rather than encouraging the child’s engagement. Just because you can create an interactive element, doesn’t mean that the game creators necessarily should.

I wonder if the power of narrative to encourage learning is related to the longterm success of programs that began on television (Sesame Street, Dora the Explorer) and then moved onto another platform. Children are already familiar with the narrative, without having to be necessarily reminded within the app, creating more opportunities to move into areas where children get to make choices through gameplay, without losing the narrative’s momentum.