Scintillae Atelier....Play and Learning in the Digital Age.

The Scintillae Atelier research team is run by three ‘Atelieristas’, Simeon- an expert in design; Federica whose strength is theatrical improvisation and Jennifer who is into the Maker Movement. Their job is to research play and learning in the digital age.

This vertical garden was designed by Stephano Moncuzzo from a group of neobiologists who contribute new ideas to the project.

Scintillae has a long lasting relationship with the lego foundation.

1998-2001 saw the first joint project with the lego foundation and Reggio schools. It was based on how to use robotics in school.

2016-2019 Scintillae ran a project called TIDA, “Tinkering in the digital age” and one of our PhD colleagues, Barbara Donnici was the manager for this project. This research was done with children from kindergarten to primary school during their after school care programme.

Scintillae are experimenting with publishing their documentation directly online so that the learning process is immediately visible.

One of the main Reggio philosophies regarding play & digital learning is that because digital is part of everyday life, and it speaks to all languages, it must to be used in a meaning making way - not in a way which isolates children. Scintillae aims to keep the virtual spiral between play and learning together in collaboration with each other. The child and the teacher are on a common design journey where the adult is the facilitator of the learning. It is about the generation of ideas which can be virtual or real or both.

There is no pre and post test, but it is qualitative research where each phase of play is documented.

Reggio Emilia wants to be able to transpose the ideas developed in Scintillae to other cultures, so they are working on establishing the core values of the programme which can be shared with teachers so they can apply them in their own cultures but … — Reggio Emilia wants to be able to transpose the ideas developed in Scintillae to other cultures, so they are working on establishing the core values of the programme which can be shared with teachers so they can apply them in their own cultures but in their own style.

Loris Malaguzzi defined space as the third educator; the Scintillae learning space is designed to be extremely flexible, it’s a module you can arrange in different ways. The indoor space also connects to the outside.

As part of the ongoing research one Saturday per month informal groups of children come for eight different sessions to help the researchers explore how they can use different materials to build a play and digital context. They want to foster a playful attitude (serious play).

Children are not told how to do, but it is about the process of developing your own knowledge in collaboration with others. They also learn that there is value in making mistakes, in fact that they have the right to make and learn from their mistakes.

A prototype learning experience was held at a Summer Camp in July 2019. The children designed the learning space with the teachers. There were lots of materials from old fashioned puppets to lego. The children chose to make puppets of their own, and then they made digital stories with the puppets to share with the group of children who were to follow them on the next camp. The teachers loved how an ancient toy was brought into the digital age by the children.