A group of schoolchildren in
Two friends in
A girl collaborates with her mom to make an animated birthday card for her grandmother, including family photos and a personalized birthday greeting that she sings into the phone.
All of these young people created their projects with a free mobile coding app called OctoStudio, released publicly today by the Lifelong Kindergarten research group at the
Around the world, more and more children and teens have access to mobile devices, but many spend hours passively watching videos and scrolling through social media. By contrast, OctoStudio invites young people to use phones and tablets to express themselves creatively - and, in the process, also learn computational and problem-solving skills.
'We designed OctoStudio to expand opportunities for young people to create projects anytime, anywhere,' says
OctoStudio builds on decades of research by the Lifelong Kindergarten group on the design of new technologies to engage young people from diverse backgrounds in creative learning experiences. The group previously invented Scratch, the world's most popular coding language for kids, used by tens of millions of young people around the world.
OctoStudio is designed especially for children and families in communities where access to computers and internet is limited, but mobile phones are widespread. Throughout the design process, the Lifelong Kindergarten team has been collaborating with educators in
'The majority of my youth don't have Wi-Fi at home. They don't have laptops or desktops. But most of them have access to a cellphone, and that means they also have access to OctoStudio. And what that is going to do is spread the love for creating,' says
Linford Molaodi, lecturer and program manager of the creative coding project at
As young people create with OctoStudio, the world is their palette, full of creative possibilities. They can take photos and record sounds, bring them to life with coding blocks, and send their projects to family and friends. Using the phone's sensors, they can create projects such as musical instruments that play sounds when they jump, games that react to the tilt of the phone, or collaborative projects that use Bluetooth to beam signals between phones.
'When the students start to use OctoStudio in the classroom, they become engaged in playful exploration and creative learning,' says
At OctoStudio workshops in public libraries in
OctoStudio is now available for free in app stores for both iOS and Android, and includes translations in more than 20 languages. OctoStudio does not collect any personal data, and does not track people who use it in any way.
More than a dozen people in the Lifelong Kindergarten group are now working on OctoStudio. The group continues to add new features, resources, and translations based on its ongoing collaboration with educators around the world. Key collaborators include Brazilian Creative Learning Network, the
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