Tinkering with Technology and Play

13

May / 21

13 May / 21

Posted by Deanna

Technology and Play

The Tinkering Studio is part of a collaborative project with educators from around the world focusing on the intersections of technology and play. One of our partners is Right to Play in Rwanda, an international non-profit organization that empowers children through the power of play. It's wonderful to meet new collaborators, especially ones with a robust tinkering practice themselves. Early on in the project, team members shared what tinkering looks like with kids they work with and shared the following documentation:

A child made a face mask using a basket weaving technique.

This child made an excavator after being inspired by one at a construction site.

Finding inspiration from the world around them and making objects of personal significance are key indicators of a tinkering practice. With a shared love and appreciation for tinkering, we started our collaboration by hosting a tinkering experience for the Right to Play team that we developed during the pandemic. We love to start any new relationship with a hands-on experience to embody what tinkering looks like in a shared experience that we can all reference and reflect on.

Sharing a Tinkering Experience

We sat down with the Right to Play team (virtually) to get to know one another through a tinkering experience. We spent 90 minutes together making Shadow Remix drawings and reflecting on the educational and creative possibilities of the experience.

Engage as Learners

After introducing the activity, we created shadows and shared our creations on Padlet. Our conversations flowed between sharing over video, text, and images. One wonderful moment was when Franklin shared this shadow he created (center) and how he made it (left) and made the following remark.

Franklin used a pen and a wall plug to make his shadow.

He noted that his shadow looked like a building.

A remix of Franklin's shadow into a magical castle.

"At first, I thought it was complicated. But when others presented what they had done and that it was simple, I saw I just had to grab something around me to explore." - Franklin Gakuba Murangira

Franklin noted that the activity felt simpler once he started working with the physical materials, which aligns with how we think about designing for tinkering experiences. Our work centers around this belief and we design our tinkering experiences to be evocative and invite learner's questions.

Engage as Educators

It is part of our tinkering practice to reflect together on our experience as learners, to discuss what we noticed, and how the experience connects to our education practice. During our reflection, David shared that his exploration allowed for an opportunity for his daughter to share her own interpretation of a shadow. She walked by while he was making his shadow and shared her interpretation with him.

"I think it’s a good way to start conversation about something they know. You can develop conversation that is not necessarily pre-planned but something that can help people to talk about. When they visualize something in the shadow, that means they have a prior knowledge about it. So it can start conversation about what they know, what they think, and what they’d like to share.” - David Rugaaju

One of the big ideas behind designing for "tinkerablility" is to create opportunities for storytelling and for learners to bring their own experience into the exploration. David said that when learners are inspired by materials or an activity, they tend to connect that experience to their interests and prior knowledge. Educators can then build on that prior knowledge by asking questions and letting the learner follow their interests.

Next Steps

After our initial workshop, we're left with lingering questions. How does tinkering support personally meaningful explorations and align with what individuals bring to the table? Can learners develop their own motivations by re-engaging with a theme or topic (ex: light and shadow)? We look forward to digging into this question further with the Right to Play team, both with longer interactions with kids over weeks as well as in limited or one-time experiences.

This project was made possible through generous support from the LEGO Foundation.

Tinkering with Balls, Ramps, and Bridges

05

May / 21

05 May / 21

Posted by Tinkering Community

Guest post by Ihuoma Iheukwumere, Site Director at Transbay Child Development Center. Ihuoma is passionate about providing effective and robust learning experiences for young learners while empowering the educators who work with them to do the same. She spent the first decade+ in the classroom, always looking to take the children on a journey for the next STEM project. In her leadership role, Ihuoma is focused on bringing to life the vision of a school where STEM is not just approachable but a great springboard for student achievement. She is committed to improving equitable access and delivery of educational experiences to a diverse audience of early learners.

Our preschool classroom started an exploration of balls and ramps using pegboards in late summer 2020. With the transition of new children from the toddler classroom into the preschool space in October 2020, the staff discovered that our newest preschoolers were also interested, however they had a harder time manipulating the pegboards - putting in/pulling out the pegs and balancing the tracks using the grooves.

Our friends from the Exploratorium introduced us to some new materials (Soft foam balls and the book Carrot and Pea) that have the potential to support our younger learners to be comfortable and confident exploring this subject while encouraging the older children to delve a little deeper.

We like to think that Carrot and Pea is the most non-threatening book to present the idea of working with ramps, bridges and towers to young children. The presentation of science concepts using familiar foods is brilliant. The unlikely friendship between Colin the carrot (a rectangular prism) and Lee the Pea (a sphere) created the window of opportunity for us to have conversations about the properties of each shape and what was possible.

Exploring Lee, the Pea

The staff had a planning meeting to take our unique classroom into consideration. Considering that we have a mixed age classroom (2yo 6mos to 5yo) a wide range of skill sets, and some English Language Learners, we decided to introduced one material at a time to get them fluent in it. We also used the K-W-L teaching strategy to assess what they know about balls before and after they had engaged with it.

"The pea is a sphere. It rolls and bounces" - Levon

Reading from the book, Carrot and Pea introduced the children to some new vocabulary words describing the properties of a ball. Roll and Bounce.

The staff observed that some of our children didn’t understand what bounce meant. While most of them could not verbally describe what bounce meant.

Teacher: What does bounce mean?

Jaion (5yo): She gesticulates waving her arms up and down from side to side.

Jai (5yo): “It’s when the ball goes into the hoop.” He stands using one hand in an up and down motion (like a basketball).

Kylie: “It’s like this. That’s bounce” (she makes a jumping motion with her whole body).

Teacher: “So what is happening? If I take this ball and wave my hands and jump is it bouncing?"

Students laugh and say no. They took another chance verbalizing their thinking.

Kylie: “You have to hold it up”

Jai: “You have to drop it down and it will bounce.”

This allowed us to define bounce as “what happens when you drop a ball and it hits another surface (ex. Floor or Wall) and it comes back.”

They were excited to try it out. Each child received a ping pong ball and it was an explosive burst of exploration. Children were very engaged in exploring the phenomenon of bouncing. The teachers supported them observe what happens when the ball bounces, how high it can bounce and how fast it bounced.

The hands on activity supported them make real connections to the word bounce. Also deconstructing the movements required to achieve a bounce supported them to make the connections quickly. Children organically found new ways to make the ball bounce higher. They started throwing the balls up and letting it fall, tossing over their heads, throwing it at the wall to create a series of bounces. The staff supported them answer these questions:

How high can you bounce the ball?
What did you do to make the ball bounce higher?
What else did you find out about the ball?

Roll

The staff posed another question to the children. “What other ways can you move the ball if the ball is at rest and isn’t moving?” They pondered on this question. We observed that they struggled to express themselves verbally relying on non-verbal cues to show their understanding.

Jaion: “I can move it with a stick.

Teacher: “I agree. What if you don’t have a stick?”

Jai: “The ball moves when you touch it.”

Jason: (Demonstrates rolling the ball letting it roll off his finger tips)

Jaion: “You need to push it!”

Other peers start to roll their balls using different styles. Pushing on it or rolling off their fingers.

Teacher Van: What happens when the ball rolls and hits the wall?

It took the children a minute while observing what happens when the ball hits the wall. Then they all yelled, “It BOUNCED!”

This moment was really pivotal because not only were they truly observing but they had arrived at the conclusion that it would change direction not only vertically but horizontally. This knowledge they would need further down the road in their exploration.

After several days of exploration a child excitedly tells the teacher, “I have two more new ways of moving the ball. You can let the air blow on it by itself or you can blow air with your mouth. Do you see?” - James

Staff Reflection

The uncertainty the children faced seemed to recede as the staff provided ample time to explore the phenomenon of bouncing. Providing vocabulary and thinking prompts supported them to express themselves. The initial use of ping pong balls was successful for children to understand the word bounce because ping pong balls have an exaggerated bounce compared to the soft foam balls. They became confident and started tinkering on their own as they played, figuring out other ways to manipulate the balls to bounce and roll. Having the book available to revisit the pictures was also helpful. We are off to a great start.

A Summer in the Tinkering Studio

26

Apr / 21

26 Apr / 21

Posted by Tinkering Community

Guest post by Bárbara Yarza, a designer and educator from Mexicali, Mexico. She loves discovering and making unexpected connections between different disciplines, people, and stories, and her work centers around joy, exploration, and play.

Back in the summer of 2019, I had the amazing opportunity to be in the residency program of the Tinkering Studio, where I had the experience to be part of a wide variety of activities:

Designing and developing new learning experiences
Being part of the weekly dynamic meetings
Tinkering along the team with new ideas and artifacts
Creating learning materials and props at the Makerspace
Cleaning a giant storage room full of cool artifacts and historical objects
Tinkerer experience facilitator at the daily exhibits
Walking around the Exploratorium and chatting with inspiring staff members
Eating cookies from the museum snacks cart

As a person who loves remembering details (all senses involved!) I am always carrying around a small notebook, so I can take notes of everything that catches my attention.

It’s very special to look back into your notes once in a while, and re-discover a special moment in time, often highlighting conversations, ideas, and observations.

Visitors of all ages, the museum staff, the Tinkering Studio team. What would be of the Exploratorium without those meaningful conversations, ideas, and observations?

The following sections don’t have a chronological order but seek to share the spark that evolved into explorations and projects while my residency at the Tinkering Studio.

“Playing is for everyone. I’ll always be a child.” - Grandma

Who sat down on the floor to play with her daughter and grandson

As a part of my weekly tasks, twice a week I facilitated activities and got to tinker with visitors of all ages from around the world! At that time, the current exhibit at the Tinkering Studio was Light Play (My personal favorite).

This activity has been part of the museum for over 50 years, but there are always new things to explore and discover. Despite being an iconic activity, for the first time we were trying out ideas in order to make the experience more accessible for preschool children.

Previously, the light sources that were usually used are difficult for children to manipulate. To create a friendlier experience for children, we designed a lamp in the shape of a wooden block, which also worked as a construction block, to develop an interest in playing with light.

“Where did the shadow go?” - 5 year-old

While playing with a wooden block lamp, the kid noticed that suddenly the shadow was gone

What if we can create a more controlled environment that could contain all these stories and explorations at the same time?

A great example of a controlled environment is the exhibition called “Tactile Dome”, a geodesic dome structure, that I used to see every day on my way to the Tinkering Studio. With this as a reference, it was time to create a paper prototype to explore and visualize the idea.

The result was a laser-cut modular cardboard dome, attached with cardboard joints, that can be assembled and disassembled without the need for tools or any glue.

The dome created a more closed and controlled environment, which turned out to be a great space to explore with colored lights, textures, and movement.

“Shape, move, repeat!” - Turtle Art Coding blocks

A computational thinking exploration

As part of the tinkering sessions with the team, we were exploring how we can introduce computational tinkering to the visitors.

One of the potential paths was using the Turtle Art software, which uses coding blocks to create art. I noticed that similar to other design softwares, it allows you to create simple to complex forms by using coding blocks and parting from the basic principles of geometry: shape, repetition, movement and rhythm- that often leads to a beautiful pattern.

We test out some options to replicate those concepts through unplugged activities from block stamp printing to coding cards to shadow patterns.

“The triangle likes to dance!” - 7 year-old

Said this kid while playing with a triangle shape as he was moving it around (my favorite way so far to describe movement and rhythm)

Being inside the Tinkering Studio workspace feels like being inside a fish tank, due to its large amount of windows. The team often uses some of the windows to communicate activities, display projects, and current research topics.

I was assigned the task of designing a window display that communicated one of the current explorations about computational thinking. I like to think of window displays as a framed story that only makes sense when the viewer interacts with it and adds their personal experience.

As you can imagine by now, my love for Light Play is strong (and it will always be!) - so I didn’t put it aside for this task, so my challenge was to integrate all the stuff that was going on at the time in a single exhibition.

The principle of the window display was to bring the digital experience of making patterns to the physical world.

Taking advantage of the current Turtle Art exploration, I generated different shapes and transformed them into vector files that I can laser cut using different colored cardboard. Followed by mounting the designs on different layers hanging from the ceiling of the window display - Looking like a floating garden.

To showcase the exploration of computational thinking patterns through light play, I created a focus point by using some screens, suspended shapes, and light projections. A marvelous thing about Light Play is that very complex objects are summarized into a simplified shadow, so this was a great way to represent how a complex object (shadow) is made through the basic design principles.

“You can do a lot of things. But you can never un-tinker your sister's tinker." - Dad to daughter

One of the most remarkable things during my residency was the opportunity to observe and be amazed by how people interact with the museum and with each other, having different experiences and giving a whole different meaning to them, as they created their own learning and shared with their loved ones.

Thanks to the Tinkering Studio team for opening the doors and letting me create my own experience of the Exploratorium and contribute to creating it for others as well. I will always be grateful.