Hosted by leading experts in digital research from the Digital Media Research Centre and the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child, the Woodford Children’s Festival welcomed the DMRC’s first Play As A Digital Child workshop on Thursday 28 December at the Puppet Joint, Woodford. Led by the dynamic team of DMRC experts, Dr Aleesha Rodriguez, Dr Aimee Hourigan, Benson Rajan and Phoebe Matich, the workshop aimed to inspire children to become active digital citizens while nurturing critical digital literacy skills.
This workshop, Augmented Reality and Creative Play, embarked on a journey into the world of augmented reality through a unique blend of physical arts and digital technologies. Children’s drawings and crafts came to life, fostering creativity and excitement, developing the children’s critical digital literacy skills, and fostering a love for learning in both the natural and digital worlds.
The second Play As A Digital Child workshop to be offered by the DMRC at this year’s festival is Natural Wonders: Ordering Like a Digital Pro held at Big Paint on 31 December. Children are invited to collect natural objects and learn how to order them like digital systems do. This workshop focusses on engaging arts-based play that prompts conversations about computational thinking and decision-making.
Inspiring Active Digital Citizenship: The workshops have been designed to cultivate critical digital literacy skills while fostering a love of learning in both the natural and digital realms. These engaging sessions have provided an opportunity for children to explore, create, and develop a sense of digital citizenship. Woodford Children’s Festival offered an extraordinary opportunity for children to ignite their curiosity, creativity, and digital literacy.
