The Lifelong Kindergarten group believes that all children should learn through creative expression and hands-on exploration like in kindergarten. Their goal is for learners of all ages to continue designing, creating, and experimenting through a process of playful learning to become creative problem solvers who can help their communities. They draw inspiration from Piaget's views that playing and experience help children establish understanding through assimilation of new ideas and accommodation of prior knowledge.

2. Papert: still relevant?

3. Johann Sperl - Kindergarten, 1885. Neue Pinakothek, Munich.

4. © Please Touch Museum

5. In the Lifelong Kindergarten group … we believe that it is critically important for all children, from all backgrounds, to grow up knowing how to design, create, and express themselves. We are inspired by the ways children learn in kindergarten: when they create pictures with finger paint, they learn how colors mix together; when they create castles with wooden blocks, they learn about structures and stability. We want to extend this kindergarten style of learning, so that learners of all ages continue to learn through a process of designing, creating, experimenting, and exploring. Our ultimate goal is a world full of playfully creative people who are constantly inventing new opportunities for themselves and their communities. http://llk.media.mit.edu/mission.php

6. Schema “ Experience of objects plays, naturally, a very important role in the establishment of dynamic structures” From Piaget (1961) A genetic approach to the psychology of thought

7. Accommodation and Assimiliation “ All exchange between the organism and the environment is composed of two poles: A) of the assimilation of the given external to the previous internal structures, and B) of the accommodation of these structures to the given ones.” From Piaget (1961) A genetic approach to the psychology of thought

8. Assimilation ATHERTON J S (2010) Learning and Teaching; Assimilation and Accommodation [On-line] UK: Available: http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/assimacc.htm Accessed: 8 October 2010

9. Accommodation ATHERTON J S (2010) Learning and Teaching; Assimilation and Accommodation [On-line] UK: Available: http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/assimacc.htm Accessed: 8 October 2010

10. ATHERTON J S (2009) Learning and Teaching; Piaget's developmental theory .

12. Play and Exploration Children learn through first hand experience in activities they have chosen Play allows children to test their ideas Play lets children learn from mistakes Play fosters imagination and flexibility of mind Rich, enabling environments are provided Allow children to dictate the pace, length and focus; interventions should be supportive Recognise children’s fascination with and curiosity about what is going on in their worlds. EYFS: Effective practice: play and exploration

13. Free-flow play In free-flow play, children Use first hand experience from life Make up rules as they play Symbolically represent as they play Pretend Are deeply involved and difficult to distract Try out their most recently acquired skills and competencies Bruce 2004, cited in EYFS: Effective practice: play and exploration

14. Bee-Bots

15. Roamer

16. Probots

17. Some practical work Play with one of the robots! Working with a partner, plan a directed play activity for children in Reception using your robot. Use a Flip video camera to capture this as role-play (you may wish to join forces with another pair) Upload your video Post some reflective commentary

18. Bee-Bot Sim

19. Some questions… Wouldn’t early years be better without all this technology? Floor turtles vs screen turtles? Is work on a computer concrete or formal operational? What constitutes ‘playing on a computer’? How would you interpret free play and directed play in the context of ICT? What about ‘educational games’? What about commercial, off the shelf computer games?

20. To follow-up Read ‘ Play and Exploration: In Depth ’ and address one of the discussion points on the previous slide Consider, with your partner, how play might be used to explore aspects of your chosen text. Watch Ken Robinson: Do Schools Kill Creativity? Blog your response.