Giants, Beanstalks, and Technology

I recently read an article by author and technology culture geek Cory Doctorow. In it he talks about parenting, children, and “screens.”

The way Cory describes how he and his daughter involve a computer and the Internet in their play could have been a case study for what I’ve written about the idea of context aware toys — minus the actual toy part.

Jack and the interstalk: why the computer is not a scary monster:

But the fun comes when we incorporate all this into our storytelling play. It started with Jack and the Beanstalk. I told her the story one morning while we were on summer vacation. She loved the booming FEE FI FOE FUM! but she was puzzled by unfamiliar ideas like beanstalks, castles, harps and golden eggs. So I pulled up some images of them (using Flickr image search). Later, I found two or three different animated versions of Jack’s story on YouTube, including the absolutely smashing Max Fleischer 1933 version. These really interested Poesy (especially the differences between all the adaptations), so one evening we made a Lego beanstalk and had an amazing time running around the house, play-acting Jack and the Beanstalk with various stuffed animals and such as characters. We made a golden egg out of wadded up aluminium foil, and a harp out of a coat-hanger, tape and string, and chased up and down the stairs bellowing giant-noises at one another.

But the laptop play we’ve stumbled on feels right. It’s not passive, mesmerised, isolated TV watching. Instead, it’s a shared experience that involves lots of imagination, physically running around the house (screeching with laughter, no less!), and mixing up story-worlds, the real world, and play…