September 23, 2016 - 16:19
I think that every educator for young children can agree that play is important for developmental skills. When a child first starts school in pre-k or Kindergarten, most of what they do is learn the alphabet, numbers and colors. But the way they do this is not just by the teachers telling them what everything is, but by playing. Children play "house "or "doctor" or "school" with every single color and number and item labeled for them. By immersing themselves in these forms of play they are also learning. I do not know if this form of learning for young children has been constant but, I do know that this is the way that I've learned as a young child and that this is the way my parents have learned. The point I'm trying to make here is that the form of play for young children up to about first or second grade is all the same despite the technological changes in society.
Once a child is around the age of 6 or 7 he/she is introduced to learning games on the internet and other forms of non-physical play. I believe technological play to be artistic play because online learning games, video games, and even social media are all forms of art. Some very intelligent people had the idea of creating these things out of new technological advancements that were made, and was able to have their ideas become a reality. Due to technology, every couple of years a new form of technological and artistic form of play is created. This does not only apply to children but the adolescents and adults as well. Eventually, I believe that the physical form of play in pre-k and Kindergarten will no longer exist because technology will seep its way into the curriculum.
This belief that I have come to terms with comes from Dorothy Kim's post about her "Playtime" over the years. Dorothy said that her physical play happened when she was a young child and once she entered her double-digits that playtime evolved into reading by herself. Play is enjoyable, and I assume that reading is enjoyable for Dorothy being that she made this her play. But the most important aspect that I took from her post which led me to believe what I believe about technology and learning as a form of artistic play is that fact that she made online activities her new form of play once she became a teenager.
Now that I think about this further I have come to the conclusion that this will be at different times for every generation. During this generation that Dorothy and I both share, it would be in our teenage years. For my mother it would have been in her late 20s, for my grandmother it would have been in her 60s, for my younger brother it would have been when he was around 3- and for my children it would be when they are old enough to sit-up right! The thought of online gaming is fairly new. My parents did have gameboys but what I'm trying to poke at here is the use of gaming through the internet, which is very, very new and had been introduced to the people of the past 3 generations at completely different times. The definition of artistic play is taking something and making it into something new, This can be applied to a variety of different things. From physical materials so ideas. I think that technology is a form of artistic play and ultimately the whole world will be consumed by this form of play and a majority of physical play whether it is for fun or for learning purposes, will be gone.
Kim, Dorothy. "Playtime." Serendip. N.p., 19 Sept. 2016. Web. 23 Sept. 2016.