«Coding as a Playground: Young children, robots and kittens»
Marina UmaschiTufts University, USA
Abstract
This talk, by the developer of the KIBO robot and the free ScratchJr programming app, will engage the audience in exploring how children starting at age 4, can become programmers by engaging with the powerful ideas of computer science in a playful way. Case studies will be presented as well as the Positive Technological Development approach developed by Dr. Bers to design new technologies for learning and evaluate outcomes.
Biografía
Marina Umaschi Bers, PhD, is a professor at the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development and the Computer Science Department at Tufts University. She heads the interdisciplinary DevTech research group. Her research involves the design and study of innovative learning technologies to promote positive youth development. Dr. Bers received prestigious awards such as the 2005 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the NSF Career Award and the American Educational Research Association’s Jan Hawkins Award. Over the past decade and a half, Dr. Bers has conceived, designed and evaluated diverse educational technologies ranging from robotics to virtual worlds. Most recently Dr. Bers has focused her research on technological environments for young children, 4 to 7 year old. Dr. Bers has received several grants that allowed her to develop and research such technologies. Both of those, the KIBO robotic kit and the ScratchJr programming language, have left the academy and are available to the wide public. ScratchJr is a free app and KIBO is being commercialized by KinderLab Robotics, Inc, a company she co-founded in 2013 and for which she received the 2015 Women to Watch award by the Boston Business Journal. In 1994 she came to the US and received a Master’s degree in Educational Media from Boston University and a Master of Science and PhD from the MIT Media Laboratory working with Seymour Papert.
