Learning and Creativity in Digital Play: An Overview

• In Event: Structural Inequalities in Play, Creativity, and Learning With Digital Technologies

Abstract

Objectives
The paper provides an overview of the Learning through Play Experience Tool (LtPET), and reveals the insights from the mixed methods study on children's experience of play with digital technologies for creativity and learning. LtPET provides a detailed mapping of children’s experiences and agency, including how the context foster opportunities for children to construct meaning, develop their skills and apply knowledge to novel situations. The paper examines how the tool is applied to digital technologies across inequalities in income, age, gender and race, and describe the implications for parents, teachers and the supportive media and policy environment to foster a more inclusive approach to digital technologies for creativity and learning.


Methods, techniques or modes of inquiry
The role of play has studied extensively in terms of its role in child development (Piaget, 1962; Vygotsky, 1967), its evolutionary purpose with specific properties (Stuart Brown, 2010; Gray, 2013) the benefit of play activities (Whitebread et.al. 2017; Moyles, 1989) and the role of the adult and educator (Pyle & Danniels, 2017; Parker & Thomsen, 2019). However, we need to pay closer attention to children's experiences and agency, and how the context around the child, including the integrated role of digital technologies, sets expectations for learning (Hirsh-Pasek et.al. 2015). This paper extends the current research on children’s perception of play and learning across contexts with a more nuanced understanding of play with digital technologies, and how the resources and socio-economic conditions shape children's creativity and learning.

Data sources, evidence, objects or materials
The research study adopted a mixed-method approach with parents and children of age 3-11, with a rich data set based on a survey of more than 3,700 parents and detailed case studies with children and families. The paper includes an assessment of the relationship between technology use and the characteristics of learning through play, and a detailed mapping of children’s use of technologies in their everyday lives and implications for creativity and learning. The survey data was processed with SPSS 22 statistical package, focusing on an analysis of differences in relation to age, race/ ethnicity, gender and socio-economic status, and qualitative data with deductive coding using the Learning through Play Experience Tool.

Results and/or substantiated conclusions
The survey data revealed socio-economic differences in children's experience of learning through play, and in how the context and environment scaffold children's agency and use of technologies for creativity and learning. First, children's play and learning with technologies are highly influenced by where they live. Secondly, the use of technologies for creativity and learning depends on the family's economic situation and parent attitudes to play with digital technologies. Thirdly, children’s experiences of learning through play are perceived as being less present in UK than in South Africa, and parents generally see technologies as being less meaningful and iterative. Fourthly, play with digital technologies support children to take initiative and follow what happens, but much less about personally owning an experience, setting own goals and doing things they haven't tried before.

Author

• Bo Stjerne Thomsen, LEGO Foundation