Event Overview &
Video Introduction

Panel Discussions

• Exploring Play, Engaging Creativity
• Beyond Video Games
• High Tech, Not High Cost
• Secrets of Successful Collaborations

Ideation Sessions

• Playing with Time
• Today’s Way of Play
• Concept Clustering
• Idea Development
• Super Spark Evaluation

Showcase

• Let’s Go Out and Play
• Playback
• Interactive Comic Book
• Pod Buddy
• Mobile Play Place
• Let’s Try It Out
• Mapping Pittsburgh’s Biodiversity
• Make Your Own Lazer Maze

What’s Next?

Thank You and Credits

Exploring Play, Engaging Creativity

The Fundamentals of Play, the Changing Role of Media, and the Appropriate use of Technology

Featuring a researcher in education, a specialist in early childhood media, a Micro Spark project manager, and a robotics artist working with adults and children, Exploring Play, Engaging Creativity introduced participants to the importance of play in early learning and development and some of the creative ways that technology is being integrated into the ways that kids play.

The Importance of Play in Early Childhood Development

Panelists identified play as a universal human characteristic, one which requires time and patience from parents and caregivers. Yet in many contemporary scenarios open-ended play is marginalized or eliminated in favor of structured, single-outcome activities. As evidence for the benefits of more open forms of play, panelists presented research correlating unstructured play time during childhood with greater achievement during adulthood.

Using examples from their professional backgrounds, panelists described technology as a tool or medium best utilized as a step towards imaginative play, not to be confused with the act of play or the benefit of play itself.

Today’s Challenges

Panelists stressed that children must have time during their day for unstructured play, including recreation and peer interaction as well as play with toys. Panelists shared the belief that non-specific or multiple-use toys were the most engaging and inspiring objects for young children as they allowed for kids to practice greater levels of agency and creativity in their play.

The challenge discussed by panelists and participants is how to ensure that technology applications in the world of children’s play are not the end, but rather an innovative means to enable children play in a creative way. Technology should be viewed as an option, not a necessity, providing avenues for children to experience play in a way that is meaningful to them.