Methods and findings from a project on creative uses of digital technologies in daycare insitutions. Presentation at LEGO.

1. Creating Uses
- methods and findings from a project on creative uses of
digital technologies in daycare insitutions (2015)
Presentation at meeting with LEGO, Billund, December 4th
2015
Kjetil Sandvik, Associate Professor, Dept. of Media,
Cognition and Communication, University of Copenhagen

2. Project outline
• Assignment by the Ministry for Children, Education and
Gender Equality
• Creating a national network of daycare institutions in
Denmark
• Mapping existing municipal and institutional strategies
and practices concerning uses of digital uses for
learning and play
• Doing on-the-floor research with pedagogues and
children developing new practices for uses of digital
tools in daycare instutions (Next Practice Lab): 275
children and 31 pedagogues from 17 daycare
institutions in 10 municipalities.

3. What users want?
• We’ve been asking: is there a match between existing digital tools
on the market and the wants and needs in daycare institutions
when it comes to pedagogical practices and children’s play
• Hard to answerer, because both market and daycare institutions are
developing very fast.
• The existing technology is experimented with and explored and
thus play practices develop which are including and interacting with
various digital tools (e.g. iPads) – and as new practices develop new
wants and needs develop too
• So – beside the obvious demand for digital technology which is
robust, mobile, flexible, multi-functional, intuitive to use (e.g. not
dependent on reading skills) - the actual needs of these particular
users develop through their everyday practices
• As such digital ‘playware’ for daycare institutions needs to develop
at ‘eye level’ in collaboration with the children and the pedagogues.

4. Method: Next Practice Labs
• Developing new uses of digital
media (primarily iPads +
accessories) in daycare
institutions (3-6 year old children)
• Best described as a) open
laboratories and b)
experimenting communities
• a) does not close itself of from
older methods and experiences,
but builds on them
• b) focuses on collaborative
testing, improvising, creating and
‘toying with’ digital technology
between children, pedagogues,
researchers and ideally designers.

5. Top-down: fixed
and predictable use
Eye level: uses
developing through
play

6. Methods
• Action based research:
creating and studying at the
same time in collaboration
pedagogues and children
• User-driven and co-creative
development: creating frames
for the children’s own creative
experiments
• Process-oriented: both
development and use
practices are rooted in play
activities (not in end-results:
something to watch or show)
The pedagogue
The children
The researcher

7. iPads decides
Pedagogues decides Children decides
Intended use vs creative use
Skepticism vs open-mindedness Habits vs creativity
Appropriating possibilities Challenging possibilities
Eye level
deve-
lopment

8. Three modes in creating new practices
• Learning and exploring
(controlled by
pedagogues): to get
acquainted to the iPad, to
see its possibilities etc. It
is important with
planning and well-defined
frames for all to feel
comfortable (both
pedagogues and children)

9. Three modes in creating new practices
• Setting the iPad free
(controlled by both
pedagogues and
children): to improvise
and use the iPad in
impulsive ways, letting
children teach children,
insisting on process, not
product oriented

10. Three modes in creating new practices
• iPad fully integrated in
children's play (control-
led by children): iPads are
used for play, iPads are
inspiring play (maybe
even without being
physically present in the
play activity: moving like
in 'reverse camera',
imagining landscapes as if
using 'green screen' etc.)

11. Concluding remarks
• It is not a matter of replacing top-down with bottom-
up
• Next Practice Lab strategies are about finding a
common ground for collaboration between the
pedagogues setting the frames and the children co-
creatively creating and engaging in new play practices
• Focuses on the importance of process, of open-
mindedness towards change, and on key operating
modes like participation, collaboration and co-creation

12. New project 2016: uses of digital
media among 1-2,5 year olds
• Studying how small children's curiosity may be the driving force in
their first experience with digital media: play and learning thorugh
movement, senses and creativity
• using digital media in exploring, experiencing and understanding
the children's surrounding world.
• Creating and testing new ideas for how digital media may support
and interact with play and learning activities
• Developing new ways of working with digital media and the
learning plan themes and doing this at 'eye-level' in collaborative
and experimental processes between children, pedagogues and
researchers
• Laboratory: the daycare institution Paddehatten, Vejle
• Participant: children, pedagogues, researchers (Klaus Thestrup,
Carsten Jessen, Jacob Knudsen, Stine Liv Johansen, Kjetil Sandvik
• Period: 2016