News Article

Preschoolers, Monkeys, Computers, and TV

Wednesday, July 5, 2017

In "PBS Show Will Teach Preschoolers How to Think Like Computers," an article published on EdSurge.com, writer Jenny Abamu highlights the new emphasis on computational thinking—the ability to formulate problems, collect and analyze data, break problems into a sequence of smaller steps, and test solutions. Abamu interviews Marisa Wolsky, an executive producer at public television’s WGBH in Boston, who believes PBS children’s programs can be used to teach computational thinking even to very young children, i.e., preschoolers.

 With funding from the National Science Foundation and PBS, EDC researchers are working with WGBH staff to create a blueprint for computational thinking goals and then a plan for how children can learn the target skills through an animated program called Monkeying Around. Researchers will begin testing the effectiveness of a pilot version of the show this fall; WGBH hopes eventually to produce a 40-episode series.  

 Read the EdSurge article here.

For more on EDC’s Monkeying Around project, click here.

 

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