Connected Youth: Theme of the July-Sept issue of IEEE Pervasive Computing

The guest editors of the July-September 2010 issue of IEEE's Pervasive Computing magazine are John Canny, an engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and Jason Hong, an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University's Human-Computer Interaction Institute.  Their article provides an introduction to the publication's timely theme, Connected Youth.  The editors find that the study of the current generation of children and teens provides useful information about the future of computing as in integrates more seamlessly into our daily lives, the way we learn, and our relationships and interaction with others across time, place, and generations.

I'm in the middle of reading this issue of Pervasive Computing.  The articles that have caught my eye so far include "Story Time for the 21st Century", which describes the research an implementation of an interactive book-reading system designed to connect children, family members, and grandparents who live in distant locations. The system involves videoconferencing with paper books and interactive content, and enables grandparents to read with their grandchildren via the Internet.



Additional information about Story Play, a system that is still under development, can be found on the Nokia Research Center website: "Family Story Play: Story Time for the 21st Century".  A follow-up project to Story Play is Story Visit:



I'll post more about the articles from the Connected Youth issue of Pervasive Computing in the future.

Children and Technology: "A 2.5 Year-Old Has A First Encounter With An iPad"

Handing his daughter a new iPad, the daddy says, "We have a new toy. Are you ready for a new toy?!" Of course she's ready!


Info from Todd Lappin's YouTube Channel:

"A fascinating UI experiment. My daughter likes playing with my iPhone, but this was her very first encounter with an iPad. As you'll see, she took right to it... although she too wonders why it doesn't have a camera! More critical comment on her user-interface test here: http://laughingsquid.com/a-2-5-year-old-uses-an-ipad-for-... PS: The spelling apps she uses in the video are FirstWords Animals and FirstWords Vehicles. They're great... except for the fact that the splash screen UI is non-intuitive for her. ;-)" -Todd Lappin (the dad in the video)

RELATED

Todd Lapin's Laughing Squid post: A 2.5 Year-Old Uses an iPad for the First Time

"If you’re good at understanding kid-speak, you’ll also notice that she immediately saw its potential as a video-display device. She lamented the lack of a camera, and wondered about its potential for playing games"

CHI 2010 Course 

New Methods for Designing for and with the iChild: Strategies for Today's Mobile, Social, and Internet Technologies

I took this class when I attended the recent CHI 2010 conference. We worked in groups and I was assigned the role of a 7 year-old child, designing an iPad app for "kid reporters".  It was fun.  Note:  For the iPad to be used this way in education, it really needs to have a camera/video camera.

The Children of Cyberspace

(Brad Stone, New York Times, January 9, 2010)

"...But these are also technology tools that children even 10 years older did not grow up with, and I’ve begun to think that my daughter’s generation will also be utterly unlike those that preceded it.   Researchers are exploring this notion too. They theorize that the ever-accelerating pace of technological change may be minting a series of mini-generation gaps, with each group of children uniquely influenced by the tech tools available in their formative stages of development."... “People two, three or four years apart are having completely different experiences with technology,” said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project. “College students scratch their heads at what their high school siblings are doing, and they scratch their heads at their younger siblings. It has sped up generational differences.”..." -Brad Stone

... (more info)