Bla ^Sq

Our goal with the Bla Square project is to develop a suite of programs to let kindergarten children play and express themselves in multiple languages. As a metaphor for this suite we propose a (virtual) square, where children are challenged to enagage different games, partially based on tangibles and partially media-enhanced. Interaction and animation will be the core tools we will use to make the common elements and structures of the various languages visible, accessible at children level. In the Bla Square project we are working with children and their linguistic skills, so one of our major concerns in planning the research methodology is ethics: The european community has been investigating various problems when dealing with the teaching of multiple languages, especially when immigrant children and their integration are concerned (here) The Finnish education ministry also has some guidelines about projects researching these subjects (here) And since at this moment none of the members of the group works in the fields of pedagogy or children psicology, we plan to proceed in close cooperation with teachers and pedagogs already present at the kindergartens, taking advantage of their modus operandi.   We are aware that the use of computers with very young children has sometimes being criticized, therefore many tools of the Bla Square suite will be implemented in multiple supports: e.g. as computer programs and as tangibles, table-top games, do-it-yourself paper toys. Bla Square is a spinoff of the SMAALL project.

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