Working Technologically: Investigations into How Young Children Design and Make During Technology Education

Technology education in the early years in Australia is a newly defined curriculum area. A growing amount of resource development has occurred to support technology teaching in schools. However, only a limited amount of research into technology education for children aged three to eight years has taken place. This paper presents the findings of a pilot study which investigated the planning, making and evaluating activities of children when engaged in technology education whilst in childcare. In particular, young children's ability to design, and then use their design for making was examined.     

The Science of Technology: Young Children Working Technologically

Technology education in the age band 5 to 11 has received relatively little research attention over the past ten years. With the exception of data documented by eminent scholars such as Anning (1994; 1997), Jane (1995), Solomon and Hall (1996), and Roth (1994) only a small amount is understood about how children work when designing, making and evaluating with a range of materials, information, systems and tools. This study sought to examine children's feelings, experiences and design ideas and to document the interplay between their designs (regardless of when this occurred in the design, making and evaluating cycle) and what they actually did. The findings make a small contribution towards our understandings of the complexities associated with how children aged 5 to 11 think and act technologically whilst in schools. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The genesis of design: learning about design,learning through design to learning design in play

International Journal of Technology and Design Education - Learning about design and learning through design have emerged in the literature and important works show heuristics and matrices for...