Proving that technology is--at least on occasion--child’s play, the The Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children's Media will team with the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh Technology Council, the southwestern Pennsylvania Kids + Creativity Group, and the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University for “Innovation Showcases”  that demonstrate innovative applications of art, technology, and media in early childhood learning. The showcases will be open this weekend, March 20 and 21, at the Children’s Museum and at CMU’s Entertainment Technology Center.

“We put out a call for fellowship proposals last year,” says Museum deputy director Chris Siefert, “looking for special projects at the intersection of technology and early learning. It’s not screen-based stuff. We’re highlighting different technologies and different leaning environments.”

Work by the five selected fellows and five other local developers will be on display. Among the projects are:

Ian Ingram’s  Walks in the Parks with Robots, which showcases custom robotic creatures who introduce the natural world on nature walks;

Web blogs by kindergarteners at Martin Luther King Jr. Accelerated Learning Academy, led by Heather White, who are using mini-HD cameras to create video blogs that will be featured on a web site of the Andy Warhol Museum; and

Younghyun Chung’s interactive media system for children with disabilities, which allows them to express their emotion by digital means both visually and aurally by moving their upper bodies.

The project is part of “Fred Forward,” a conference sponsored by the Fred Rogers Center at St. Vincent’s College in Latrobe.

Source: Chris Siefert, Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh
Writer: Chris O’Toole