IBMandSesame

i dont think teachers want solutions - i think they want alternative ways of doing which enrich the learning process - personalise it and all the affordances of multimodal learning

Hey everyone, your answers here can help shape what we develop; your input is much appreciated!

they recognise that new technologies enable them to do things in new ways - and reflect on what they are doing to promote learning

Learners with diverse levels of development

Perhaps balancing the need to let children play and explore, while still preparing them for the learning of primary school

@KennethPoon - Dr. Poon, thank you for mentioning this. Yes, that does appear to be a pain point we are beginning to hear about from teachers worldwide.

thats a very broad question. Can you be more specific on what you consider 'pain points'?

@BD_Homer one thing we learnt last year from our indigenous project was that you can't explore and investigate without foundation lit and numeracy

@NicolaYelland can you expound on that?

@NicolaYelland Can you please expand on "alternative ways of doing"? Sounds intriguing!

@NicolaYelland I guess ideally, the exploration and investigation provide context and motivation for learning the foundations in lit, math, etc

@Terri Rosen My way of looking at a question like this as a technologist is to understand how we can use technology to make teaching and learning more efficient in a Kindergarten setting. Dr Poon asked: how can we address diverse levels of development?

@SatyaNitta Especially in contexts where there is a high emphasis placed on preschools as preparation for primary schools and where there are large student to teacher ratios.

Dr. Poon that is such a great example of why adaptive learning will be transformative.

technology can be used for student who are not good linear learners

digital is about augmentation to the physical learning environment so the digital experience is not to replace the primary face to face experience

@SesameWorkshop alternative ways can be simple like doing a jigsaw in both real world and on iPad But also it can be different ways of documenting learning. For our indigenous kids it was creating eBooks their own stories - they thus had a reason to read

@Kenneth Poon Thanks Dr. Poon.

@KennethPoon In additions to Dr. Poon's comment about the diverse levels of development-- I would like to add (for some) the limited resources of schools may hinder the ability to explore solutions (i.e- funds, allocation of budgets)

I think one of the 'pain points' educators are experiencing around the ever increasing use of technology in the classroom is the whole tech/screen time conversation about when and how we use and incorporate tech with young children

@Terri Rosen Terri I agree this needs more research and some rigorous guidelines to be developed to guide us in the use and consumption of screen based content and experiences

I find this to be super engaging way to increase the attention to learning and make it fun for kids

We're particularly excited about using speech recognition and speech synthesis for literacy learning, including vocabulary.

i am imagining children playing and talking to each other and the agent storing this and responding in the conversation with new questions and ideas... and storing these for later conversations - exciting - reflections

Adaptive storytelling - the complexity of language and specific vocabulary used in interactive stories adapt to needs of individual children #ZPD

so not only making a contribution in the here and now - but prompting the children later to reflect back and learn from experience - make learning connections. Maybe 'save' learning stories!

@NicolaYelland I like that idea! Revisit, revise, retell

@NicolaYelland That's great! And the agent can also gain insights about children's interactions with each other, to scaffold social-emotional skill development.

@NicolaYelland I love the idea!

@SesameWorkshop Yes - this sounds fantastic. Support the modelling and extension of language - many young children will benefit from this one to one! language extension and expressing their ideas about investigations!

@SesameWorkshop and imagine if that agent is Elmo - who they love already - they will be rapt! :-)

@BD_Homer Adaptive story telling is a superb use-case and one we'd love to look at. It is challenging to do it well with machines though!

@SesameWorkshop very UDL in your approach to incorporate a feature such as speech recognition. The more features like this that can support diverse learners the better :-) curious to see what this looks like in preschool environments!

@SesameWorkshop yes - that is the beauty of technology - it does not forget (unless it crashes!!) and there is a learning 'trail' that can also be picked up by the teacher and used to extend ...

We've had some success with non-adaptive systems - exciting to think about what could be done with an adaptive system! http://gamesresearch...

oh my yes! we see technology being used to give children a voice, sensory regulation, recreation, access to learning, and much more :-)

in our hospitals we feel using technology to teach children regarding illness such as Type 1 diabetes is critical

Fantastic, can you expand on how this is improving outcomes.

would love to see IBM and Sesame work together to develop education materials with regard to children diagnosed with illnesses ect

Charlotte, that is a very inspiring use-case. Would you care to expand on what kinds of technology you use?

Terri that's very interesting, could you please say a little more about sensory regulation?

We've been building digital games to develop focused cognitive skills - e.g., executive functions - in children and adolescents

@BD_Homer Bruce - love this line of Research and would like to learn more. Are there papers from your lab you can point us to?

In the past a book was given to children recently diagnosed now we find having a video that can be downloaded to an IPAD and or phone is much better it allows the child to watch as needed to be able to digest information on their own time

Wonderful - thanks for the information!

children with illnesses feel alone different and singled out if we had Sesame characters with the same illness or a friend then they would not feel as alone

@SesameWorkshop little bodies are developing the ability to regulate. We share apps like Breathe, Think, Do with parents and educators to help support children, such as children with autism, to learn how to self-regulate their sensory system.

Charlotte, we agree! We've done that in the past many times, in many contexts. Have you seen our Autism resources? It features a character on the Autism spectrum.

@SesameWorkshop this allows children to stay in their inclusive environments rather than having to leave because they are having difficulty with their bodies, emotions, etc. We also share ideas for video modeling, hands on sensory tools called fidgets....

i have just finished a project with indigenous pre school in victoria - my home state. the iPads gave the children motivation to document their learning and read it as well as communicate and record their thoughts - imp for early literacy

Thanks Terri

Many of our papers (and games) can be found on the lab website: http://create.nyu.ed...

@BD_Homer Thanks Prof. Homer. I'll be sure to check them out.