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Week 8 - Connecting open and planned learning

What intrigued me from this week’s readings is the seemingly conflict between open and planned learning. Even in classroom, it is hard to have both. “Even in the best schools, what may appear to be genuie group debates about an issue are usually heavily controlled by the teacher … [who] already possesses the understanding of an… Read more Week 8 - Connecting open and planned learning

Week 7: Role of technology in simple interventions

What I got out of the readings is that interventions can be really simple and don’t have to involve high technology. Interventions like talking kids through math problems and solutions, and supervising on which websites to go to, can make a huge difference. It reminds me of a conversation I had with a professor, who… Read more Week 7: Role of technology in simple interventions

Week 6: Adults' role in guiding storytelling

Both articles mentioned the importance of peers in storytelling, both as co-creators and as audience. I was wondering what’s the role of adults, including parents and teachers, in guiding and teaching storytelling. It seems to me that storytelling happens so naturally that kids don’t need much guidance – but how might we design interventions can… Read more Week 6: Adults' role in guiding storytelling

Week 5 Post: Lack of transfer in learning?

I was drawn by the title “The Benefits of Playing Video Games” since I personally think that video games have more harm than good. After reading the paper, I learned a lot about different benefits video games can bring, but it seems to me that those benefits have an effect only within the scope of the… Read more Week 5 Post: Lack of transfer in learning?

Assignment 1 Review and Redesign - Mingming Jiang

  Description: URL: http://www.vidcode.io/ Objective: get teen girls excited about coding by creating fun video and graphic effects Target age: teens   I chose to study Vidcode, an online platform that empowers teen girls to learn to code and unleash their creativity by creating music videos, motion graphics, and fun video effects. Vidcode attracted me… Read more Assignment 1 Review and Redesign - Mingming Jiang

Week 4 - Adults' role in play

The article by Pellegrini and Jones, Play, toys, and language, fascinates me because they used language to provide insights on children’s play, which could be an interesting way of evaluating toys including apps. In several places in this article, the authors talked about how adults, including teachers and parents, could inhibit fantasy play and the use… Read more Week 4 - Adults' role in play

Social interaction in e-reading

Based on the study of Hirsh-Pasek et al., social interaction in apps includes face-to-face interaction in the same physical space, communication through technologies in virtual space, and parasocial relations with characters. It is interesting that in the e-reading space, little social interaction is involved. Research done by Miller mentioned some benefits of parents reading together with… Read more Social interaction in e-reading

Parasocial Activity

Jerry is really cute and smart, and it made me happy every time I watched him tackling all kinds of difficult problems. I really wanted to be as smart and playful as he is.

Week 1 Discussion

“Documentation highlights the importance of multiple perspectives in decision-making.” “Thus by using a variety of media to represent a single phenomenon, we are helping children ask better questions.” Alper made a great point here: technology can enable children to make sense of their experiences from different perspectives, either through documentation, different mediums, or social interactions. However,… Read more Week 1 Discussion

Mingming's Toy