Designing with Young Children: Lessons Learned from a Co-creation of a Technology-Enhanced Playful Learning Environment

摘要

This paper reports on the lessons learned from working with creative visual methods with young children between the ages of 3 to 5 years-of-age in an early years educational setting in Southern Denmark as part of an 18-month project on Digital Playful Learning. The overarching goal of the study was to create a practice-based technology-enhanced playful learning environment. Collaboration was with the pedagogical education University College Syd-Danmark, the preschool teachers and the children. 55 children took part in the sessions. The study investigated a selection of methods developed for children, but not necessarily young children, such as the Bags of Stuff technique and the Mixing Ideas technique. This paper will discuss the advantages and challenges of these when applying them together with young children. The findings suggest that when working with younger children researchers should make efforts into understanding the children and their conceptual framework before engaging in design activities. In addition, young children need support in their creative expression.