Programmable toys and free play in early childhood classrooms
© 2017, Australian Council for Computers in Education. All rights reserved. This paper reports on a study that investigated the ways that young children interact with discrete programmable digital toys in a free play setting. One intention was to see whether this interaction would address some of th...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Journal Article |
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ACCE - Journal for the Australian Council for Computers in Education
2017
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/57195 |
| _version_ | 1848760018111823872 |
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| author | Newhouse, C. Cooper, Martin Cordery, Z. |
| author_facet | Newhouse, C. Cooper, Martin Cordery, Z. |
| author_sort | Newhouse, C. |
| building | Curtin Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | © 2017, Australian Council for Computers in Education. All rights reserved. This paper reports on a study that investigated the ways that young children interact with discrete programmable digital toys in a free play setting. One intention was to see whether this interaction would address some of the requirements of the Digital Technologies subject in the Australian Curriculum. The study was implemented in two phases in consecutive years involving teachers and students from two early childhood classes. Researchers worked with the teachers to provide the children with opportunities to use two types of digital toys - the Sphero and the Beebot. The children were observed as they interacted with these toys and their interactions analysed using a checklist of behaviours. It was found that without some explicit scaffolding the children did not tend to demonstrate any actions that could be associated with an understanding of ‘algorithms’. However, they did demonstrate motivation, engagement, and increased proficiency and recognition with using the hardware and software of these digital systems. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T10:09:06Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | curtin-20.500.11937-57195 |
| institution | Curtin University Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T10:09:06Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publisher | ACCE - Journal for the Australian Council for Computers in Education |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | curtin-20.500.11937-571952017-10-30T08:16:07Z Programmable toys and free play in early childhood classrooms Newhouse, C. Cooper, Martin Cordery, Z. © 2017, Australian Council for Computers in Education. All rights reserved. This paper reports on a study that investigated the ways that young children interact with discrete programmable digital toys in a free play setting. One intention was to see whether this interaction would address some of the requirements of the Digital Technologies subject in the Australian Curriculum. The study was implemented in two phases in consecutive years involving teachers and students from two early childhood classes. Researchers worked with the teachers to provide the children with opportunities to use two types of digital toys - the Sphero and the Beebot. The children were observed as they interacted with these toys and their interactions analysed using a checklist of behaviours. It was found that without some explicit scaffolding the children did not tend to demonstrate any actions that could be associated with an understanding of ‘algorithms’. However, they did demonstrate motivation, engagement, and increased proficiency and recognition with using the hardware and software of these digital systems. 2017 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/57195 ACCE - Journal for the Australian Council for Computers in Education restricted |
| spellingShingle | Newhouse, C. Cooper, Martin Cordery, Z. Programmable toys and free play in early childhood classrooms |
| title | Programmable toys and free play in early childhood classrooms |
| title_full | Programmable toys and free play in early childhood classrooms |
| title_fullStr | Programmable toys and free play in early childhood classrooms |
| title_full_unstemmed | Programmable toys and free play in early childhood classrooms |
| title_short | Programmable toys and free play in early childhood classrooms |
| title_sort | programmable toys and free play in early childhood classrooms |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/57195 |