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**ITPDP** 15-02-2019 - Magnus Sten Andersen, 201609827; Sigurd Dalsgaard Pedersen, 201804767; Frederik Ølgaard Jensen, 201808548; Asger Jark Kappel, 201809488.
In this design blog post we analyse *Broadening Children’s Involvement as Design Partners:
From Technology to “Experience”* (Gazotto, 2008) using the four pillars of learning presented in the article *Putting Education in “Educational” Apps: Lessons From the Science of Learning* (Hirsch-Pasek et al., 2015).
The hyperstories can be useful for active learning, especially when the children draw by hand, or when they take pictures specific to their hyperstories. When doing these activities, they are using a more minds-on approach using active manipulation which can be a tool for better learning. Furthermore, the children compared their work with each other, and as mentioned in the article, this process of comparing your own work with other's puts the children in a more minds-on approach which gives them a higher chance of learning about hyperstories.
The fact that these hyperstories were made by children with the intent to teach others about the history of the roman empire, makes them especially engaging since research shows that you learn better, with the intent to teach others. You could also argue that these hyperstories were emotionally engaging for the children since they are from Italy, and in some extent have heritage from the Roman empire. The children also found ways to engage their families in the experience, by visiting Milan with them during the weekend to take pictures from the Roman period for their projects. Lastly the fact that the children had the option to choose their own methods to tell these hyperstories, rather than having it predetermined is cognitively engaging.
## Meaningful learning
The fact that the children helped codesign the hyperstories project helps the children find meaning in what they are learning. With the hyperstories project the children were only asked to document their project, however, it was not specified how they should document this progress, only suggested that they take textual. Thus, the children came up with meaningful ways to document their progress such as using digital cameras, creating drawings and using cards and paper boxes to organize their material. As such the children became codesigners of the project which enabled them to find meaning in the work process and build upon existing knowledge from their previous experiences.
## Social interaction
As mentioned with active learning, the comparing aspect of hyperstories can be a social interaction too. The children's social interaction with each other enables active learning. The children could compare themselves with the other groups and observe what they could do differently and learn from that. Furthermore, in each group the members can learn from each other, when they communicate back-and-forth with the other group members.
## Learning goals
Finally, educational designs must support a learning goal. For the hyperstories project the goal was to learn about the learning process itself and using hypertext to connect projects with each other. With the specific learning goal, the children could learn new understanding of the history as well as the hyperstories. Another important aspect is that the children made reflexive use of the technology since they had influence upon which technologies, they wanted to incorporate in their projects to best support their learning experience.
With regards to the hyperstories as an educational intervention, we think the reflexive use,
codesign process and social interactive ability to compare your own work with other’s are the most important educational aspects. The fact that the children had impact on the overall design and could reflect upon and chose which technologies they wanted to use resulted in the best educational value according to Gazotto’s study. Thus, it is something we will consider using in our own design. Another aspect we will consider incorporating in our design, is the social interactive ability of comparing your own work with others’ work. Especially because we want to explore the opportunities of making math in the 4th to 6th grade a more social experience.
* Garzotto, F. (2008, June). *Broadening children's involvement as design partners: from technology to "experience"*. In Proceedings of the 7th international conference on Interaction design and children (pp. 186-193). ACM.
* Hirsh-Pasek, K., Zosh, J. M., Golinkoff, R. M., Gray, J. H., Robb, M. B., & Kaufman, J. (2015). *Putting education in “educational” apps: Lessons from the science of learning*. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 16(1), 3-34.