Paolo Ferri Associate Professor Technology of education University of Milan Bicocca University Milan

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Paolo FerriAssociate ProfessorTechnology of
educationUniversity of Milan BicoccaUniversity
Milano-Bicocca Department of Educational Science
and Early Childhood Studies Happy to connect

• Learning from Children how to use ITC the
  project Children and Computer and Bambino
  autore

• Research team Susanna Mantovani, Paolo Ferri,
  Chiara Bove, Donata. Ripamonti, Anna Poli,
  Valentina Garzia
• www.unimib.it
• paolo.ferri_at_unimib.it

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The Research Project Children and Computer
University Milano-Biccocca

• We are leading form 2004 the Children and
  Computer reaserch project coordinated by
  Professor Susanna Mantovani and Paolo Ferri
• This project has the following goals
• exploring the way the children of pre-school age
  (3-6 years old) begin to use new digital
  technologies in educational contexts (family and
  school)
• observing the first natural approaches to
  computer and web technologies
• Exploring the way teachers interact with children
  in digital augmented space of learning
• observing if/how the ICT introduce changes in
  interaction between children, teachers inside
  and outside the classrooms
• Outline some kind of new media education
• Today this is a key issues in the early
  childhood studies

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The computer as a cultural object

• Engagement, effort pleasure, concentration,
  happiness in exploring, trying and producing
  ideas, experience and performance are very
  evident in young children working cooperatively
  with computer. In some way they loves tech.
• Observing them, we understand that they love
  playing and learning with these special cultural
  objects computers and networks

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How we can observe it?

• Are we capable of seeing it and uderstanding it
  ? We need a motivation phenomenology
  (Lumbelli, 2000) aimed to develop educational
  eyes capable of seeing the pleasure and
  satisfaction in children, who are experimenting
  and learning with ICT
• This the basis for the organization of learning
  paths and tools of media education in order to
  capitalize the energy and avoid the waste of the
  happiness to connect that istructional forms
  of teaching new media e with new media

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Some of our research question are

• how can we recognize describe and support these
  cognitive activity and emotions, as strong
  source of energy for producing experience,
  learning and and critical knowledge on new media?
• How can we organize context ICT oriented to
  support and mantein this strong source of energy
  (rather then provoke them when they are lost?)
• How can the players who are deciders in such
  context intentionally promote ad support such
  attitudes and feeling with new media education
  projects based on constructivist pedagogy

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How computer is used in school?

• We try with our research to understand how
  computer is used in early childhood education.
• About this for example, Robert Taylor, in his
  book The Computer in the School Tutor, Tool,
  Tutee, in the 80's, began to consider that
  digital technologies, at school, could have three
  different roles tutor, tool and tutee.
• It's obvious that each role depends on the
  epistemology you adopt and on the kind of
  dialogue between the teacher "computer" and the
  student.
• Our epistemological point of view is
  socio-constructivism.
• We think that hardware, software and ICT tools
  for education must simulate a real and intense
  dialogue, trough computer interface, between
  childs, teachers and also parents (Papert, Spiro,
  Jhonassen, Wenger) not to instruct child with
  teaching machine

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Learn from the Children

• It will be very important to study, to observe,
  the way children gain interest, explore and use
  computer, alone, with other children or with an
  adult, because this melts with
• adults' educational ideas
• with related consequences in educational
  relations and in didactics
• with the behaviours of children as mediators of
  shared experiences
• In Children and computer project (3 primary
  school as field for video, focous group, and
  research about 100 hours of video) and
  Bambino-autore project (20 primary schools, 20
  teacher 2000 children involved) we tray to do
  such a work
• observing children (with video and other
  qualitative research methods) using on line LCMS
  co-projected with teachers, children and
  technicians
• and also observing the way teachers and children
  explore other methods of e-learning considered as
  cooperative construction tools for creating and
  sharing knowledge.

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Learning community is also a community of
practices
Learnig community
Learninig community
Comunity of practices
The community of practice have the goals to solve
problems trought the exacange of experience
Learning community have and istructional goal,
the aim to acquire contents, capabilities
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The reserch context and method

• The methodology adopted is "Ethnographic-Visual
  Dialogical
• mix qualitative research tools ( observations and
  interviews) with anthropological research
• use of video as stimulus for the discussion
• focus groups
• Direct observation
• (Tobin Wu, Davidson, Infanzia tra culture,
  Raffaello Cortina Editore, Milano 2000).
• Discussion of observative highlights in focus
  groups to build and validate the first
  observative data through a dialogic and narrative
  method (Fabbri, Grassilli, 2003, Demetrio, 2003).
  
• We use also some interviews to parents and
  teachers in order to gather information about
  hypothesis and reasons of informatic tools and
  about personal educational experience. With the
  aim to establish comparison and sharing with
  teachers and parents on collected material.

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Research out-put

• new method of analysis to understand which is the
  best way for a new media education. The best
  approach for Children and teacher to use computer
  and ICT technology in education
• The way to let digital tools (Hardware and
  software) be approachable for children of
  different ages. the keyboard, the mouse, the
  screen. It's also important to study the best way
  to project the shape of these tools
• good practices to introduce children to usage of
  cooperative tools for on line communication, in
  order to avoid communicative and learning new
  skills and new media education competence
• The cooperative developing of a new open source
  platform especially designed for children and
  teachers (Bambino Autore-Docebo)

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• good practices to introduce children to usage of
  cooperative tools for on line communication, in
  order to avoid communicative and learning new
  skills
• The cooperative developing of a new open source
  platform especially designed for children and
  teachers (Bambino Autore-Docebo)
  docebo.lib.unimib.it www.bambinoautore.it