CHI 97 Electronic Publications: Panels
Computers, Kids, and Creativity: What Does the Future Hold?
Allison Druin (Panel Organizer)
University of New Mexico
allisond@unm.edu
David Smith
Apple Research Laboratories, Apple Computer
dsmith@apple.com
Brenda Laurel
Interval Research Corporation/Purple Moon Media
laurel@interval.com
Jordana Huchital
Starbright Foundation, Starbright Pediatric Network
jordana@starbright.org
Michael Chanover
Chanover Consulting
michael_chanover@studio.disney.com
Amy Bruckman
Epistemology and Learning Group, MIT Media Lab
asb@media.mit.edu
ABSTRACT
Our children are fast becoming one of the largest new user groups
taking advantage of emerging technologies. How our children learn,
play, and communicate are quickly changing. This panel will not ask
the question whether technology will be a part of our children's
lives. The panel participants believe this is a given. Instead, the
panelists, professionals in developing new technologies for children,
will consider the impact and possible changes that may be in store for
our children and their future technologies. Once the panelists have
offered brief statements on their visions of the future, children from
the CHIkids program will be discussants and ask questions that concern
them about the future of new technologies for children.
Keywords
children, the future, social issues, home, multimedia Internet,
educational applications, entertainment.
© 1997 Copyright on this material is held by the authors.
INTRODUCTION
Thanks to new, more powerful, easier to use technologies the future of
children's healthcare, education, and day-to-day lives are profoundly
transforming. When children sit down to read a book, it may be a
Living Book on a CD-ROM. When children write to a pen-pal, it may be
using the Internet or the World Wide Web. When children visit a sick
friend in the hospital, it may look like a virtual computer world,
rather a sterile unfamiliar hospital.
There are many questions that we as HCI practitioners and/or parents
have begun to ask concerning children and technology: How will
technology impact our children's lives? What new technologies should
we expect for our children? What will these new technologies enable
our children to do that they haven't been able to do previously? This
panel will not ask the question whether technology will be a part of
our children's lives. The panel participants believe this is a given.
As our technologies become more powerful and common in our homes,
schools, and hospitals, we believe children will increasingly learn
and play in a social context thanks to technology. In the past,
computer critics have seen technology as offering an isolating
learning and social experience for children. We believe in a very
different future: a future where children, teachers and parents will
all have the opportunity to learn, work, and play together, because of
technology. Cultural exchanges, team building, and collaborative
creative expression are among the many opportunities that new
technologies can offer our children in the future.
Our panel presentation will include not only a look at what the
panelists believe may be in store for children in the future, but
representatives from our CHIkids program will also offer their insites
into the future. After these brief statements, children from the
CHIkids program will be discussants, and ask questions of the
panelists concerning the future of new technologies for kids.
PANEL POSITION STATEMENTS
The following statements from our panelists summarize their views of
the future. These are the panelists' best guesses based on their
current work with children and technology. These view points are not
meant to promise crystal-ball accuracy, but rather, visions of what
they would like to see in the future.
David Smith
Ms. Brown's 4th grade class is studying ocean science. Along with
their reading materials and physical manipulatives, they are
programming on their computers a simulation of an undersea world with
fish and plant life. A team of five kids has been assigned to develop
predator fish. After drawing and programming several types of sharks,
they place their sharks into the class' simulation and watch with
satisfaction as the sharks devour everything in sight. "We rule!"
they exclaim. But they notice other kids running back to their
computers to develop shark-avoidance rules for their fish. They're not
really worried, however, since they feel they can always upgrade their
sharks to keep them "kings of the sea."
"Let's see if anyone on the Net has shark ideas," suggests one. So
they search the Internet and soon discover numerous fish simulations
and individual fish written by other children in other schools. They
download a few and run them, but they're not too interesting. Then
they discover a particularly mean-looking shark. But when they try to
download it, their Net browser informs them that it will cost them 25
cents to copy it.
"I'm not going to pay a quarter for a piece of junk," says one. "Let's
see if it's any good first." They connect to a chat area, but no one
there knows anything about the shark. So they browse though a bulletin
board and discover four notices about it. Three think it's the coolest
thing they've seen, and one thinks it's overpriced.
"Let's take a chance," they say. So they pay the fee electronically
and download the shark. It lives up to its billing, having some
beautiful animations and being programmed with some clever
behavior. The kids modify its programming to adapt it to their class'
simulation. They chuckle to themselves, because they know that the
next time the class gets together to run their simulation, they will
be in for a big surprise...
Brenda Laurel
Any technology that pervades the lives of young people needs to
support play in ways that are conducive to healthy development.
Particularly relevant-- and fragile in technological environments--
are constructive and narrative forms of play. Like television,
computer interfaces and interaction paradigms have often proven
inimical to these activities. Yet, it seems clear that the health,
not only of our children, but of the entire human enterprise is deeply
related to our ability to act constructively and to delight in
creativity. Likewise, the ability to hear, construct, and tell
stories is a vital means of creating and sharing knowledge,
understanding, values, and wisdom. My focus is on those things that
we can do as designers and inventors to assure that our future
technology enhances rather than dulls these abilities and
sensibilities in our children.
Jordana Huchital
In the future, I see a world in which children with illnesses will
have access to variety of tools to help empower them to better
understand, cope with, and manage their illness. Through computers,
kids of any age will be able to access information about their illness
in a fun and engaging manner in terms that make sense to them, from
their bedside at the hospital or at home. They will be able to play
games on the computer, to learn how to achieve a state of relaxation,
and to learn techniques to manage their illness better. Kids will be
able to change their hospital environment to reflect the mood they
want to create, by projecting self-created images onto the walls and
ceilings of their hospital rooms.
Interactive technology in the future will be used to help kids with
illnesses manage pain and anxiety, and most importantly, will serve as
an enabling tool. The connectivity of interactive technology will
also enable sick kids not to feel so alone, whether they are at home
or in the hospital. They will be able to communicate and engage in
activities with sick kids in other locations, as well as with friends,
family members, classmates and teachers.
Michael Chanover
Story telling is a ritual that has taken place since the beginning of
time. It is a set of events or ideas that can be woven together, like
a piece of fabric and then unraveled again, time after time; each
instance bearing the change of the story teller. The role and
influence of technology in our world culture today is causing a
radical change in the way that individuals receive and process
stories. It is not hard to find a 10 year-old child with a computer
and a CD-ROM, a TV and VCR, and a 28.8 kps connection to the Internet
and World Wide Web.
People are discovering and inventing a plethora of new ways to
integrate this ritual of story telling into our lives. It means, that
as we become more disconnected from each other as individuals, we must
look harder for a commonality that we can share. As the various kinds
of media increases that can support new ways of story telling, the
importance of new technologies in this area becomes ever greater.
What will these new technologies be, and how will they influence the
stories we tell? These are some of the interesting questions that may
be in store for us in the future.
Amy Bruckman
In Mindstorms, Seymour Papert has a vision of a technological samba
school. At samba schools in Brazil, a community of people gathers to
prepare a performance for Carnival. People of all ages learn
together. Everyone is learning and playing-- even the stars are there
to learn their difficult parts. Papert imagines a kind of
technological samba school where people of all ages come together to
learn and play with technology. Virtual communities on the Internet
(like my own MOOSE Crossing project) have the potential to fulfill
that vision.
With MOOSE Crossing, kids are building a world together, doing
creative writing and computer programming in their spare time for fun.
Kids have made baby penguins that respond differently when you feed
them five different kinds of food, magic eight balls that tell your
fortune, and the place at the end of the rainbow where you must answer
a riddle to get the pot of gold. Kids are directing their own
learning experiences, and learning from one another.
Technology can regiment kids into answering drill and practice
questions, or it can open up a new opportunities for creative
expression and self-directed, self-motivated learning. Market forces
will determine which technologies become more prevalent. We need to
educate parents and kids to demand more empowering technologies.
CHI 97 Electronic Publications: Panels
