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Play Platforms for Children’s Creativity

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Creativity in the Digital Age

Part of the book series: Springer Series on Cultural Computing ((SSCC))

Abstract

Children’s imagination and their natural need for exploration and discovery can be stimulated when they are in contact with rich contexts and environments (Van Scoter et al. 2001; Van Scoter 2008); this inherent tendency offers an enormous opportunity for researchers and designers to develop tools that unleash children’s potential, involving them in creating meaningful projects (Papert 1993). Research on this field has highlighted that well-design technological tools for children need to be compelling, support exploration, encourage creativity, develop curiosity and promote interaction and collaboration with peers while being simple and intuitive to use (Plowman et al. 2012; Resnick et al. 2005; Resnick and Silverman 2005).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The term digital manipulatives has been coined by Resnick and the lifelong kindergarten at the MIT Media Laboratory, Cambridge, MA, referring to a new generation of computationally enhanced manipulative materials that enable children to interact with digital information (Resnick et al. 1998). In the scope of this work, we will use the terms digital manipulatives, tangible user interfaces (TUIs), or tangible systems as synonyms.

  2. 2.

    http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/11/prweb11342067.htm

  3. 3.

    Wizard of Oz defines a technique in which users interact with a technological system that they believe to be autonomous but which is actually being operated or partially operated by a person who simulates the system responses to the user’s input.

  4. 4.

    Processing: http://www.processing.org/

  5. 5.

    9th International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology http://aceconference.tumblr.com

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Acknowledgements

We would like to express our thankfulness to the Colégio Teresiano, Braga, and give a very special thank you to all the preschool children, their parents and preschool teachers, who creatively helped us developing and testing this project in all its various development phases. This work is funded by FEDER through the Operational Competitiveness Factors Programme (COMPETE) and by National Funds through the FCT – Portuguese Foundation for the Science and the Technology – within the Projects PTDC/CPE-CED/110417/2009 and the Doctoral Grant SFRH/BD/62531/2009.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Child Studies, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal

    Cristina Sylla

  2. Institute of Education, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal

    Clara Coutinho

  3. Department of Information Systems, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal

    Pedro Branco

Authors
  1. Cristina Sylla
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  2. Clara Coutinho
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  3. Pedro Branco
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Cristina Sylla .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Communication Sciences, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal

    Nelson Zagalo

  2. Department of Information Systems, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal

    Pedro Branco

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Sylla, C., Coutinho, C., Branco, P. (2015). Play Platforms for Children’s Creativity. In: Zagalo, N., Branco, P. (eds) Creativity in the Digital Age. Springer Series on Cultural Computing. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-6681-8_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-6681-8_12

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