Mobile Technologies for Children

Speaker: 
Allison Druin
 
09 Oct 2009
 
12:00 PM
 
Alliant Energy-Lee Liu Auditorium, Howe Hall

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Allison Druin is the director of the Human-Computer Interaction Lab and an associate professor in the University of Maryland's College of Information Studies and Institute for Advanced Computer Studies. Her work includes developing digital libraries for children, designing technologies for families, and creating collaborative storytelling technologies for the classroom. Druin's most active research is the International Children's Digital Library ([url=http://www.childrenslibrary.org]www.childrenslibrary.org[/url]), now the largest digital library in the world for children, which she and colleagues expanded to a nonprofit foundation. She is the author or editor of four books, including Mobile Technology for Children. Druin received her Ph.D. from the University of New Mexico. Part of the Women in Human-Computer Interaction Series and the Women in STEM Series.

For many children (ages 2-12) in the United States, mobile technologies are now an integral part of their everyday living and play experiences. They commonly use mobile phones, netbooks, pen-based computing, GPS systems, computer-enhanced toys and much more. But this is not the case for all children. There are still young people who live in places where mobile technologies are just becoming affordable. Others live in areas where there is no cell phone service at all. And still other children live in places where basic living necessities outweigh the need for electronic technologies. There are extreme differences in children's opportunities and challenges for learning with new technologies. Allison Druin will discuss how to approach designing for these diverse children. This talk is not about how to make mobile technologies. It is about how to make BETTER mobile technologies for the world's children. DruinI will demonstrate some of our newest work at the Human-Computer Interaction Lab in mobile collaboration and intergenerational mobile storytelling. She will also suggest how these new mobile technologies call for new approaches to design.