Researchers looking at relationships between children and technology have received funding for two new projects:

Digital Play

Professor Lydia Plowman and a team at Moray House School of Education have been awarded funding by the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) to design, develop and evaluate an eight-week online course on digital play for parents and health workers. They will work in partnership with Playbase, NHS Lothian, and City of Edinburgh Council.

Twelve Edinburgh primary teachers recently attended the first day of a course on computational thinking at Moray House, led by Judy Robertson and Holly Linklater.  As the curriculum for computing at primary schools in Scotland is changing (click here to see Education Scotland's computing curriculum), we wanted to work with teachers to help them understand what is required and gather examples of how they put the new guidelines into practice.

We are appointing three Undergraduate Research Associates to work with us on a project looking at anonymous social media over this academic year. The three RAs will spend a total of 20 days each on the project, spread across specific weeks in October, December, January and May. They will be responsible for conducting a participant observation within Yik Yak and possibly other anonymous social media platforms, collecting data directly from these applications, coding it using specialist software, and writing four brief accounts of their findings. 

The end-of-project findings from the AHRC-funded Artcasting research have been published.

A new collaboration between the Artcasting project team and the Edinburgh Art Festival.

We have received funding from the University of Edinburgh's Challenge Investment Fund to research Internet of Things (IoT) networks amongst campus-based and distanced students. 

Members of the Centre have accepted a number of national and international speaking invitations for conferences and events in recent months - in destinations as far-flung as Stanford, Singapore, Sydney and Guadalajara. Closer to home we'll be speaking in Malta, Leeds, Milton Keynes, Spain and Croatia.

Are you a primary teacher in Edinburgh? Do you want to learn more about how to teach children computational thinking? Come to our free CPL course, starting in September 2016.

Special issue of E-learning and Digital Media, co-edited by Centre members.

We have just received funding from the Edinburgh Principal's Award Scheme to research Yik Yak for understanding teaching, learning and assessment at Edinburgh.