Play and Learning in the Digital Age

Educators from Reggio Emilia often talk about the unpredictable nature of learning formed through unexpected relationships and new connections. In the last few years they have been exploring the “unexpected relationship” between nature and technology, most recently through a Digital Studio project called Scintillae: Play and Learning in the Digital Age. The aim of the project is to create and offer contexts…characterized by a natural and playful approach to digital technology, where the physical and digital worlds interact, creating unexpected and unusual encounters for learning, designing and building knowledge and images together.

During their research, they found that when children were asked to share their ideas about ‘transformation’ (what does transformation mean?what can we transform? what can be transformed?) most of them were linked to nature and natural processes (eg. caterpillars to butterflies, seeds to plants). This led to a desire to create a dialogue between nature and digital technologies allowing children to …meet the known and the unexpected together, both amplified, increased by new perspectives, new points of view and new perceptions.

Since the “digital dimension” is now our daily travelling companion in our work, why not approach it playfully and use it to “amplify” it’s potential for seeing nature from a “new perspective”?  With this in mind, and as I continue to look for and gather natures surprises on my daily walks, I decided to use my iphone to see if I could uncover unexpected relationships and a new perspective. So after taking many photos from many different angles, I decided to zoom-in to my latest gift from nature, a decomposed branch of Chinese lanterns . I began playing with filters and the mark-up tool after noticing it’s resemblance to a river and my image (and perception) transformed from a decomposed lantern into an image of salmon swimming upstream.  An unexpected surprise!

 

 

 

 

 

With these tools and with the many digital drawing Apps available (including Sketchschool on district iPads), there are so many possibilities for nurturing our young childrens’ creative capacities while also nurturing their connection to nature and their ecological identity.

As we move forward with playing and learning in this amplified digital age, why not look at technology from another perspective, one that is more playful, creative and connected to nature?

Highlights this week:

In the spirit of creating new relationships with nature and digital technology, I offer you these provocations from @Home with Reggio:

In these days when you can’t leave the house, we challenge you to go out…from the screen of a smartphone. How? To do this you need the only App that is not downloaded and that never needs updating: CREATIVITY. Follow the instructions and you will find out how to make an original selfie: 50% digital and 50% designed by you!

 

 

 

 

 

Photo Riddles from Nature. Here is one of mine…

 

 

 

Can you guess what this element from Nature is? Find out next week…

 

Note: If you are interested in learning more about Scintillae: Playing and Learning in the Digital Age, the Vancouver Reggio Association will be hosting Lorenzo Manera (most likely virtually), who is the key researcher and Pedagogista for this project.