What you Can do.
Technology has an important role in any effort to revitalize American education, especially because so many children today grow up as digital experts. When designed correctly, learning technology can engage children, introduce new ways to experience content, and challenge each unique learner at the edge of their own competence. So how can learning tools best be designed? We recently released Motion Math, a bouncing star fractions game for the iPhone and iPad, the first prototype in suite of movement-based learning games. (You can get it here.) We’ve greatly benefited from direct conversations with kids in homes and schools and wanted to share five key take-aways from our design process.
"When designed correctly,
learning technology can engage children
and introduce new ways to experience content."
1: KIDS GRASP TECHNOLOGY
One danger with creating educational games is that we all have some common sense about how to teach; this intuition can blind us to the ways that kids (and especially today’s digital natives) are different. To take one striking example, many young kids now expect all screens to be touchscreens; we’ve heard from many parents that their young children now pinch and tap the TV! Adults are more articulate about what they want in an interface, but often struggle in ways that kids never do; we’ve learned to be wary of adding features that adults ask for. A great example is text instructions - kids get the symbolic hints whereas adults prefer explicit language. Also, kids are fantastic bug finders! If you want your game to be played upside down, sideways, and in ways you never intended, give it to a child. We encourage this creative testing by asking students to find bugs. In the rare ;-) cases that they do, we reward them with a collection of hand-picked bug stickers. It's charming to watch them wear around a sparkly bug sticker on their shirts as a badge of their technical prowess.
Resources
DonorsChoose.org: Search through thousands of classroom projects and see the real-world effect of a well-placed contribution.
Mentor: Children who are mentored have statistically higher graduation rates and are less likely to abuse drugs. There are 15 million young American adults who want or need mentors.
826 National: Tutor a child and help them develop their creative writing skills.
First Book has provided more than 80 million books to schools and programs in low income areas.
Citizen Schools extends the school day for low-income children by providing after-school enrichment programs.
