Buckleitner, W., 2010. Book Review: Engineering Play: A Cultural History of Children’s Software. American Journal of Play, Spring 2010, page 485-486.
Engineering Play: A Cultural History of Children’s Software
by Mizuko Ito
Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2009. References, index, photographs, tables. 234 pp. $24.95 cloth. ISBN: 978026203352
If you’re looking for a thrilling tale of corporate espionage and rags-to-riches (and rags-to-rags) careers, you need look
no further than the business of making children’s software over the past two decades. In Engineering Play: A Cultural History of Children’s Software, cultural anthropologist Mizuko Ito opens the door for a closer look at children and
technology during this time period. Limited in scope for reasons described below, the book breaks new ground in the way it attempts to interpret what happened during this period of optimism and frustration, when publishers were competing to produce and market 979 commercial products per year during the peak year (2001) and trying to market them in retail settings.
Write a blog post describing a day in the life of a specific child (say your own child or grandchild) in 2020 (or 2040). Predict how technology will influence your child’s growth and development. In doing so, you may want to consider:
• The current generation of kids is unique. No other generation will need to live through such a dramatic change. In other words, iPods, the Wii, Wi-Fi and multitouch will only be invented once.
• That any person’s idea of childhood is defined by his or her culture, values and theories of learning. Not all of us share the same vision, and there are no “right” or “wrong” answers.
• An infant born in 2020, 2040 or 2060 will start out with the same biology as if that child were born today. Jean Piaget’s stage theory will still apply, and Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs will still apply. Wikipedia is a great resource on these guys.
COMMENTS:
The great way to understand time is to watch your kids grow up. Ten years ago I wrote A Day in the Life of a Child in 2020 (CSR, Jan/Feb 2000, online at http://childrenstech.com/2020). My two daughters were 3 and 7 (pictured with their Compaq Presario, playing Catz by PF Magic) and I was eager to test the latest software products on their developing brains. Today, they’re 13 and 17 and have burned through six cell phones (each!).
My, how things have changed. Ten years ago, cell phones made phone calls and to get online, you used a wire and AOL. There was no IMing, Wii or DS, Club Penguin, Webkinz, Facebook, Twitter, iPhones, iPods or Netbooks and Alta Vista was way bigger than Google. Gordon Moore (aka “Moore’s Law”) was true to his word—Microprocessor-based technology has continued to multiply in power and drop in price. What does this mean for my daughters’ children?
Technology changes, but a child’s development doesn’t. The answer, of course, is to study both, testing the technology, and continually assessing if it is “good” for our kids, based on how we define “good.”
It’s a safe bet that the next ten years will be marked by significant evolution on the software and human/computer interaction front, now that we’ve made it to connected tablets with ten hours of battery life. We have the tools. Now it’s time to figure them out, and start the sometimes uncomfortable process of assimilating it into our home or school culture of choice.
This is a fun question, and one that I’ll be exploring in depth in my presentation tomorrow night at the Strong Museum of Play. I’m also going to be introducing ten apps that I think support Montessori ideals.
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By the time she was 43 years old, Maria Montessori was an educational rock star.
In the fall of 1913, two of her admirers — Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell, invited her to come to the United States to give an address at Carnegie Hall, and 1000 people had to be turned away at the door. See http://bit.ly/92w6w2. John Dewey himself provided her introduction.
So what if it were 2010 instead of 1913, and Montessori was asked to talk about technology? Would she condemn it, as being overly commercialized and abstract? Or would she embrace it, recommending the purchase of iPads in all of her schools?
I think she’d see the issue in the same way she saw the role of the teacher, using the same criteria she used to choose and design materials.
Apps would be merely a new kind of material for her. Some apps are supportive of a young child… others are less so.
I think she’d be extremely excited about multi-touch on the larger iPad screen; and she’d love the concept of how you can use the Internet to deliver content to a child, at any time. After all, she was a scientist/MD, who embraced new technology. She’d like way the Wii gets children moving around, and be curious about additional applications for the accelerometer.
She’d be the first to give a young child a digital camera to capture representations of his or her world, and would be on the front edge of exploring how to tap the power of the touch screen to help children acquire language and logic abilities.
I think she’d be very excited by apps that self-level, and that give children instant feedback on their finger swipes.
She also wanted her students to be active participants in the future, and it is clear that she understood that her students would grow up in a world different than the present time, having lived in the time of Marconi and having personally witnessing the effects of many medical breakthroughs.
But she’d view the issue as the scientist she was. This new stuff should be studied, and implemented carefully — in a way that is customized to each individual child.
MONTESSORI’S CONCERNS
I’m quite certain that Montessori would have a lot to say about the downsides of technology; most principally the abstract nature of most glass screens. She’d be highly critical of the amount of didactic media (one way, non-interactive) or time that a young, modern child spends with in structured settings like classrooms with rows of seats, or in front of a screen with nothing but abstract symbols, and she’d be very quick to remind today’s parents and teachers that young children learn best when actively engaged in some way. The more real, the more meaningful, the better chance the learning sticks.
She’d condemn programs like Baby Einstein, comparing them to the worst possible teacher who does nothing but try to talk and stimulate, and leaves nothing for the child to do or play with. She’d say it removes the creative spirit from a young learner.
She’d be horrified at the amount of time children spend with low quality, didactic teaching (and media), especially where there is some sort of marketing angle going on; worrying loudly about the morals of a society that would attempt to manipulate a child for financial gain. Montessori often invoked themes of spirituality in her writing, as you can see, and I think probably invoke the highest of powers on this issue.
Don’t take my word for it. Have a look at Maria Montessori’s orginal text and make your own conclusions. It’s a great educational exercise.
Finally, there’s no doubt that Maria Montessori would be amazed at the number of the schools that bear her last name. Here are four of the five famous Montessori Graduates who have helped form today’s technology landscape. (The fifth is Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales).
1. Larry Page; son of Carl Victor Page (MSU computer science professor) attended Okemos Montessori School (now called Montessori Radmoor) from ‘75 to ‘79. He also attended Interlochen Academy and the University of Michigan; taking a class from Elliot Soloway
2. Will Wright had a “brief, intense” elementary Montessori experience in Atlanta GA, until sixth grade. (See Maria Montessori: The 138-Year-Old Inspiration Behind Spore, Kotaku http://bit.ly/8uiER)
3. Sergey Brin attend Paint Branch Montessori School in Adelphi, Maryland. He later tried unsuccessfully to get into M.I.T. In 1995, Sergey got into a two-day argument with a visiting younger U of M student, Larry Page. He talks about his Montessori education, here.
4. Jeffrey Bezos took his crib apart with a screwdriver. After his Montessori early education, he attended River Oaks Elementary in Houston from the 4th to 6th grades. By his mother’s account, the young Bezos got so engrossed in the details of activities at his Montessori school that teachers had to pick him up in his chair to move him to new tasks. http://bit.ly/afmDHb
Here’s the complete press released emailed to me today from Jackie Lustig, hired to do PR for OLPC. You can make your own conclusions. Can OLPC fix it’s sorted reputation for making hard to use, clunky hardware that doesn’t compare well to commercial mobile devices? Stay tuned.
One Laptop per Child and Marvell Join Forces to Redefine Tablet Computing for Students Around the World
Marvell and OLPC Empower Education Industry to Revolutionize the Classroom Experience through Advanced, Affordably-Priced Tablets
Cambridge, Mass. and Santa Clara, Calif., May 27, 2010 – One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a global organization whose mission is to help provide every child in the world access to a modern education, and Marvell, a worldwide leader in integrated silicon solutions, have agreed to jointly develop a family of next-generation OLPC XO tablet computers based on the Marvell® Moby reference design. This new partnership will provide designs and technologies to enable a range of new educational tablets, delivered by OLPC and other education industry leaders, aimed at schools in both the U.S. and developing markets. Marvell is also announcing today it has launched Mobylize, a campaign aimed at improving technology adoption in America’s classrooms.
Thanks so much to all who attended AppCamp at Asilomar (in Monterey, California). It was an amazing event, and we proved that we could pull it off.
The first annual AppCamp
Let’s just say that some hardware company was making a multi-touch tablet for the school market. By the way, the ePad is a fictional name — I think Intel has used it at some point or another. Although it is clearly iPad inspired, and Apple has a huge head start, there’s no reason HTC couldn’t make such a device using Android.
So… what features would ePad have? I started thinking about this for an article for Ednet and came up with the following:
- Two cameras and voice recognition. On the back, a high-resolution camera with OCR in back well suited for scanning or converting any document into a PDF. On the front, a lower resolution camera for video chats, so a student in the back row can beam a comment to the big screen. Read the rest of this entry »
Can Technology Enhance the Life of a Child?
Reference: Buckleitner, W., (2010). Can technology enhance the life of a young child? Children’s Technology Review, Vol. 18, No. 4. (http://childrenstech.com)
On March 21-23, a group of 150 or so researchers, journalists and publishers joined former colleagues of Fred Rogers to discuss “Creative Curiosity, New Media and Learning.” I was among the attendees (disclosure: my travel expenses were covered). The meeting was hosted by the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media, which is housed at Saint Vincent College in Fred’s home town of Latrobe, Pennsylvania. The center is both a meeting facility and a public archive of materials from the Mr. Rogers Neighborhood television program, including one of his grand pianos and several very empty sweaters. The name of the meeting, “Fred Forward” is well-suited for framing the rapid convergence of technologies these days, with the values that Fred Rogers espoused. I saw the event as a rare opportunity to collect expert opinions. After all, how often do you get such a diverse group in one place at one time? With the center’s permission, I conducted some informal interviews. My method was to ask each person a similarly-worded question. “Can technology enhance the life of a child? If so, how?” After the question, I then asked my interviewee for a suggestion about who I should interview next. My sample was 19 responses, three with associated YouTube content. Thanks to all those who were willing to talk into a (Livescribe) pen.
Designed for one player, you play as either Ratchet or Clank, as you run, jump, fly and fight your way through over five levels. Each character has unique abilities to help with different jobs. You can fly on Ratchet’s Hoverboots that allow him to travel at high speeds and great heights or utilize Clank’s time-manipulation abilities that can be used to stop Dr. Nefarious, who is attempting to control time himself. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
I presented four children, aged 2 to 11 (three boys and one girl) with the choice of an iPad and the new shiney red (larger) Nintendo DSi XL.
I asked “Which do you want to play with?” None of the children had ever seen either, although all had played both on iPod Touches, iPhones or Nintendo DS lites. The highly unscientific sample results? iPad 3, DSi XL 1. So far, the iPad wins in the novelty test. Later, after playing with this Fisher-Price app, this two year old stepped on the screen. It survived.
Below: Google Earth was the first App the older kids wanted to try.
…not in my house, but in David Pogue’s, who currently (as I write this) has just published his review of iPad. He ends his weekly newsletter with the following note of caution: “Just one note of caution: If you have children in the house, don’t let them know there’s an iPad in the premises. I have three kids, 5, 10 and 12, and the competition for time with the iPad is like a daily World War III.”
On March 22, 2010, Don Marinelli sat down with Warren Buckleitner (CTR) and Chip Donohue (Erikson Institute) for a conversation about learning, schools, augmented reality, the philosophy of the ETC (Entertainment Technology Center), innovation in the United States and his upcoming book about the founding of ETC center with his late friend, Randy Pausch.
PRESS RELEASE
FISHER-PRICE® LAUNCHES UNIQUE “MOMENTS TO SHARE”™
APPLICATION BUILT ON FACEBOOK® PLATFORM
EAST AURORA, N.Y. – March 18, 2010 – Fisher-Price, Inc. (a subsidiary of Mattel, Inc. NASDAQ:MAT) today launched the innovative, new “Moments to Share”™ application, built on Facebook® Platform. The unique application makes it easy for parents to record their child’s milestones and special moments in a dynamic timeline they easily create with digital photos, videos, dates, captions and stories.
Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s some good news for media watchers. Quality appears to be increasing. We’re not talking about violence, gender or ethnic stereotypes or Internet safety. We’re talking about old fashioned quality, as measured with the same instrument over the past 17 years. The instrument, designed to quantify five factors (ease of use, educational value, entertainment value, design features and overall value) has been used on 7,302 interactive products that cover approximately 18 platforms, spanning 1993 to 2010.
Want to go for a walk? Well designed and addictive, this low impact walking simulator turns your Wii into an endless treadmill, complete with scenery, record keeping and a virtual coach. Your walking motion is captured with either the Wii Remote, the Wii Balance Board, or a vinyl dance pad; none of which are included in the $30 price. Because there are one or two player options, we were able to dig up two mats previously used with Dance Dance Revolution (DDR), plug them in, and start striding. Read the rest of this entry »
Kids have been talking a lot about earthquakes a lot lately, for two good reasons: Haiti and Chili. So, we’ve put together a special LittleClickers column in our March issue, with links and a YouTube playlist designed to help children better understand the realities of this big and scary, and current topic.
CTR’s Warren Buckleitner talks with Lane Merrifield (aka “Billybob”), the general manager and one of three co-founders of Club Penguin, following his keynote address at Engage Expo. Topics include the future of multi-touch for children.
Lane is also the Executive Vice President of the Disney Interactive Media Group. He oversees five of Disney’s virtual worlds, including the soon to be released “World of Cars.” This conversation took place in mid-February, 2010, at the American International Toy Fair.
Scene from Littlest Pet Shop Online
Update January 2010: Just added to Littlest Pet Shop Online is a new island called Kittywood with more to explore. We had a look using an EA provided account and found the navigation to be clumsy and the entire experience to be limited. While the type/chat options are good, you get the feeling that there’s more you can’t do in LPSO than what you can do.
Available October 1, 2009 from Hasbro, this online world should not be confused with Littlest Petshop, or the related series of games for the Wii and DS. This Webkinz-like virtual world/toy combination found at www.lpso.com will be designed specifically for girls. There will be 12 plush toys, sold and distributed by Hasbro. The world will be designed and developed by Electronic Arts, all in Flash, so there will be no need for downloads or installations. In addition, anyone can register and get in, without a pet. However, you’ll quickly find that your options are limited, unless you have one of the $15 animals and the code that goes with it. Features will include chat, daily events, house parties and different mini-games found on different islands. Children can also customize rooms, build a floor plan & their own wallpaper. Teaches: chat, creativity, spatial relations, reading, typing. Hasbro, Inc.. www.hasbro.com, $15/year. Best for ages 6-10.
Rating: 
or .625%
If you don’t mind a bit of a learning curve, this ninth edition of Inspiration contains everything you’d want in a brainstorming package. New to this version: a Presentation Manager, which lets you generate slides that can be reordered as needed, much like a PPT presentation. Other view options include a map and diagram view, and a new symbol library is designed specifically to support curriculum areas.
The price is $69 for a single user (two computers), or you can upgrade to version 9 (before June 30, 2010) for $30. Each install requires a valid serial number. The program comes on a single Mac/Windows CD, and requires 250 MB of hard disk space. Prices for five-computer license packs and up start at $310. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
I was surprised by how much I liked MobiGo. The QWERTY keyboard feels real and doesn’t talk down to preschoolers, and there are no surprises in the interface. The big question, of course, is the quality of the eleven software titles that will be released this August, along with the system. VTech’s V.Smile software was famous for it’s chattiness. Based on what I saw, we’ll have to judge each title individually. The USB port is important to note, and the touchscreen looks great. Specifically targeting preschoolers (ages 3 to 7 years), there’s no doubt that this $60 device has the power to deliver a quality digital touch experience; and compares at least as well to if not better than the iXL.
The mono-touch screen is a bit like a Nintendo DS and the burned in ROM activities including coloring, drawing, and some music games. The slide open QWERTY keyboard introduces older kids to text typing skills; an added bonus to the responsive touch screen. Features include volume, an AC adapter, and 11 game cartridges sold for $20 each, including Ben 10, Disney/Pixar’s Cars, Disney Fairies, Disney Princesses, Dora the Explorer, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Mr. Men & Little Miss, NASCAR, Shrek, Super Hero Squad and Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story 3. MobiGo will be available at retail and online at www.vtechkids.com. Teaches: early learning. VTech Electronics North America, $60. Best for ages 3-7.
QUESTION
I am writing to ask for some advice with quality mathematics software for 4- and 5-year-old children. I am conducting a pilot research study exploring the potential benefits of educational software in facilitating children’s learning of mathematics. Could anyone help with some quality titles on mathematics software and possibly some good interactive websites??? My focus is mainly on number sense but anything related to mathematics would help. (From the NAEYC TechLearning Listserve)
ANSWER
Here’s a quick listing of about 12 options, from the CTR database. I’m certain this is more than you want. But it makes you realize how diversified the platform choices have become for early childhood math learning. The recent iPhone/iPod Touch apps, for example, where you use your finger to touch, move and manipulate quantities, can be rich with number learning potential and should be studied. Hope this helps! W. Buckleitner, CTR
Apple's iPad (coming April 1, 2010)
Why could the iPad revolutionize computing for kids? Here are some reasons.
Eric Rosenbaum
During Dust or Magic 2009, Eric Rosenbaum — a doctoral student at the MIT Media Lab, provided a preview of some of the research that is going on related to SCRATCH. Eric’s Master’s thesis explored reflective learning in the Scratch programming environment for children.
Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Blip.tv video.
Intel’s Infoscape is a prototype that was being shown at CES 2010. Here’s what I learned. There are two screens, each powered by a single i7 chip, which was the point of the display. This is not a production model. The display was created for Intel by http://foghorncreative.com and was positioned at the corner of Intel’s giant CES 2010 booth. Infoscape is made up of two 7′x7′ touch screen glass walls that are set at a 1920x1920 resolution. The content is controlled by “a man behind the curtain” (in this case Mike Martin) with a laptop. It is fun to think about what you could do with this type of technology in your living room, school lobby, classroom or library.
KFF's latest report considers ten years of survey data
Tomorrow, the Kaiser Family Foundation will release Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds (Rideout, Foehr & Roberts), an important report summarizing the media use patterns of 2,002 3rd–12th grade students and a subsample of 702 respondents who also volunteered to complete seven-day media use diaries. The study was conducted from October 20, 2008 through May 7, 2009. Past KFF surveys have provided an important reference point for new media scholars. Among the key findings:
• Over the past five years, there has been a huge increase in media use among young people. Today’s kids “pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes worth of media content into those daily 7½ hours—an increase of almost 2¼ hours of media exposure per day over the past five years.”
• An explosion in mobile and online media has fueled this increase. From page 2: “Try waking a teenager in the morning, and the odds are good that you’ll find a cell phone tucked under their pillow—the last thing they touch before falling asleep and the first thing they reach for upon waking.”
Expensive hardware has commonly been paired with curriculum in order to shoe-horn in platform specific curriculum to classrooms. As you read the following release, ask yourself — Does this mean that you can’t run Waterford’s Curriculum on a SMART Board, a 3M surface, or some other type of large screen? I’m not so sure.
I think this is more of a distribution deal.
Here’s the original press release:
Technology has evolved a lot since we published our first newsletter in ’93. So have we. What’s new for 2010?
- This WordPress format, which lets us react instantly to the latest news, tips, research and products.
- A lower price. $24/year gets you 12 issues in PDF format and (for the first time) a passkey to full database access. Here are some free sample issues.
- Twitter and YouTube channels. Now we can show you as well as write about the latest products, and keep you up to the minute.
- More “what does it mean.” Our experience helps us see the forest from the trees. And our PDF format saves trees, too.
What hasn’t changed is our commitment to children and to our paid subscribers. Our editorials and hype-free reviews are designed to keep you informed on the latest children’s interactive media news. We’re working hard to earn your trust, and once you trust us, we hope that you’ll return and subscribe to get full access, for $24/year.
Sincerely,
q
q
Warren Buckleitner, Editor
Children’s Technology Review