Designing Digital Experiences for Positive Youth DevelopmentFrom Playpen to Playground

Abstract

This book is about digital spaces that can support positive youth development. This book is driven by values and by a sense of urgency —as the design of our digital landscape is increasingly guided by commercial purposes and not by developmental concerns. Designers of digital landscapes that promote positive development, must take into consideration the children’s social, emotional, cognitive, physical, civic and spiritual needs. But should also consider the unique design features of each technology and the practices and policies that shape different interactions in the digital landscape. Although this book is about new technologies, it is inspired by an old question: “How should we live?” This book presents an approach to help children gain the technological literacies of the 21st century while developing a sense of identity, values and purpose. Too often youth’s experiences with technology are framed in negative terms. This book acknowledges problems and risks, and takes an interventionist perspective. It invites readers to not only observe and describe the digital landscape, but to actively engage in co-designing it by focusing on positive behaviors that can be promoted by new technologies. Based on over a decade and a half of research, this book provides a theoretical framework for guiding the implementation of experiences that take advantage of new technologies to support learning and personal development, as well as examples from concrete experiences. These engage children in playful learning by supporting content creation, creativity, choices of conduct, communication, collaboration and community building. These are the six C’s proposed by the Positive Technological Development framework presented in this book. They can guide the design and the evaluation of experiences from early childhood to adolescence. This book offers a possible path to help children out of the playpens into the playgrounds of this technological era.

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