"The body at the heart of digital learning - exploring a new paradigm for early childhood education."
Marion VOILLOT, PhD student in the Interaction Sound Music Movement team of IRCAM-STMS (Ircam, Sorbonne University, CNRS, Ministry of Culture), Université Paris-Cité and Centre de Recherche en Design (ENS Paris Saclay/Ensci-Les Ateliers) defended her thesis on Monday, December 5 at 2:00 pm in the Stravinsky room at Ircam:
Before the jury composed of:
- Emmanuel Sander, Professor at the University of Geneva - rapporteur
- Fabienne Martin-Juchat, Professor at the University of Grenoble-Alpes - rapportrice
- Nicolas Nova, Professor at the HEAD of Geneva
- Stéphanie Fleck, Lecturer at the University of Lorraine
- Muriel Mambrini, INRIA, research director at INRAE and director of the FIRE graduate school (Université Paris-Cité)
- Mathieu Cassotti, Professor at Université Paris-Cité
and :
- Frédéric Bevilacqua, Research Director at IRCAM-STMS (co-director)
- Joël Chevrier, Professor at the University of Grenoble-Alpes (co-director)
- Guillian Graves, Associate professor at CRD (co-supervisor)
You couldn't attend it or wish to see it again ? The defence and the questions are now on-line: https://medias.ircam.fr/x8d78fe_marion-voillot-soutenance
Abstract of the thesis
Faced with the digital revolution in motion, questions related to the digital uses of young children are multiplying. The idea presented here is not to take part in this social debate in a controversial way but rather to question the stakes that it suggests among which the one of early childhood education in the digital age, through a main question: How to create digital interactions adapted to the development and education of young children? In a research approach, between action and creation, anchored on the practice of design, the thesis is essentially based on the creation of several devices.
The first one takes the form of a "survey-creation" entitled "The Little digital culture : the development of the toddler in the digital age". The other three devices propose experiences that place the body at the heart of digital learning, and thus propose a new paradigm for early childhood education.
● CoMo.education - an application to tell and create sound stories in movement through the use of smartphones that translate gestures into sounds (in collaboration with the Sound Music Movement Interaction team of IRCAM-STMS).
● Learning Matters - electronic textile circuits allowing to physically manipulate information processing systems: energy/information/signal, through the use of signal, through precise gestures - caressing, tapping, rubbing (in collaboration with Claire Eliot, designer specialized in e-textile)
● the eGloo, a mini living-lab designed for young children in which the narration storytelling encourages multi-sensory interactions (in collaboration with Premiers Cris and OVAOM).
Each device is the result of a collaborative process that brings together experts in early childhood, engineers and designers and has been tested in nursery schools or places of cultural and artistic awakening.
At the crossroads of several disciplines (design, cognitive sciences and human-machine interaction), this thesis project is situated in an "in-between" in which theory and practice, science and design, objective and subjective communicate in a relation of interdependence.