SOFTWARE BY KIDS FOR KIDS

or many children today, their first interaction with technology is at home playing video games. The number of hours spent in front of these screens must be in the order of hundreds of billions. While many researchers, parents, and educators have good reason to be concerned about the quantity of time spent in this manner, they tend to overlook that even so-called educational software often does not function as any more than enhanced page-turning devices displaying information to be learned and monitoring students’ progress. There are currently few opportunities for children to go beyond button-pushing and mouse-clicking in their interaction with technology. By asking children to program software for other children, we are turning the tables and placing children in the active role of constructing their own pro-grams—and constructing new relationships with knowledge in the process. The most obvious benefit is that children learn about technology by building things of significance, such as game software. A far more promising aspect is that learning programming and learning about technology is not only good for its own sake but also good because it is supportive of other types of learning. As I will explain in more detail, the very process of programming game software to teach fractions (or any other subject topic, for that matter) to younger users allows children to engage in significant mathematical thinking and learning. But most importantly, through programming , children learn to express themselves in the technological domain. In the world of educational programming, these last two aspects of learning with technology have received far less attention than the traditional benefits of technological knowledge. A software design project starts with a simple instruction: ” Design a computer game that teaches something about fractions to younger students. ” Everything else is left open. A class of students transforms their classroom into a game design studio for six months. During that period, they are: Students meet every day for one hour to write in their notebooks about their ideas, plans, and designs. They also discuss issues related to programming, games, teaching, and fractions. They give presentations to each other and meet once a month with their prospective users. All the students create a fully finished product—a computer game—with its documentation , advertising, and packaging. Since 1991, several software design projects with a focus on various mathematical or science topics have been conducted successfully with students ages 8 to 11 …