Social and curious: Lessons in designing digital manipulatives for young children

Matthews, S; Nicholas, M; Paatsch, L; Kervin, L; Wyeth, P

Social and curious: Lessons in designing digital manipulatives for young children

Matthews, S Nicholas, M Paatsch, L Kervin, L Wyeth, P

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Publisher:: Elsevier
Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: International Journal of Child Computer Interaction, 2025, 44, pp. 100725
Issue Date:: 2025-06-01

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Matthews, S
dc.contributor.author	Nicholas, M
dc.contributor.author	Paatsch, L
dc.contributor.author	Kervin, L
dc.contributor.author	Wyeth, P https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1867-9536
dc.date.accessioned	2025-08-11T03:50:03Z
dc.date.available	2025-08-11T03:50:03Z
dc.date.issued	2025-06-01
dc.identifier.citation	International Journal of Child Computer Interaction, 2025, 44, pp. 100725
dc.identifier.issn	2212-8689
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/189330
dc.description.abstract	Introducing Digital Literacy (DL), including Computational Thinking (CT), to young children develops foundational skills in computer science, problem-solving, and critical thinking. However, current digital toys for demonstrating computational thinking strategies are not always designed for early-year environments or specifically for young (preschool) children. Digital manipulatives incorporating embedded computation can offer developmentally appropriate tools to introduce foundational programming strategies and dynamic system knowledge before children become developmentally ready for more formalised programming activities. This paper presents an empirical study in a preschool environment with children (aged 3–5 years) using novel digital manipulatives, Embeddables, in child-led free and guided play activities in a preschool (Fig. 1). From our analysis of the types of activities the children engaged in, we identified underexplored design features of digital manipulatives that can build early exposure to CT skills through ludic and epistemic play. These are designed-in behaviour, distributed interactivity, conditional and proximal relations between artefacts, and abstracted multisensorial reactions.
dc.language	en
dc.publisher	Elsevier
dc.relation	http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/CE200100022
dc.relation.ispartof	International Journal of Child Computer Interaction
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100725
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.subject.classification	3904 Specialist studies in education
dc.subject.classification	4608 Human-centred computing
dc.title	Social and curious: Lessons in designing digital manipulatives for young children
dc.type	Journal Article
utslib.citation.volume	44
pubs.organisational-group	University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology
utslib.copyright.status	open_access	*
dc.rights.license	This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
dc.date.updated	2025-08-11T03:49:58Z
pubs.publication-status	Published
pubs.volume	44

Abstract:

Introducing Digital Literacy (DL), including Computational Thinking (CT), to young children develops foundational skills in computer science, problem-solving, and critical thinking. However, current digital toys for demonstrating computational thinking strategies are not always designed for early-year environments or specifically for young (preschool) children. Digital manipulatives incorporating embedded computation can offer developmentally appropriate tools to introduce foundational programming strategies and dynamic system knowledge before children become developmentally ready for more formalised programming activities. This paper presents an empirical study in a preschool environment with children (aged 3–5 years) using novel digital manipulatives, Embeddables, in child-led free and guided play activities in a preschool (Fig. 1). From our analysis of the types of activities the children engaged in, we identified underexplored design features of digital manipulatives that can build early exposure to CT skills through ludic and epistemic play. These are designed-in behaviour, distributed interactivity, conditional and proximal relations between artefacts, and abstracted multisensorial reactions.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/189330