PTD Framework
How are resources on this site approved?
The resources on this website can be submitted by anyone. However, a DevTech Research Group member will look at and approve them before they are published on the website. Credit will be attributed to the authors of the resources. The DevTech Research Group members will make sure the content is appropriate and can add more tags to facilitate browse filtering of the database. In addition, the DevTech team will evaluate submissions using the Positive Technological Development framework developed by Professor Marina Bers.
What is the PTD Framework?
The Positive Technological Development (PTD) framework guides the development, implementation and evaluation of educational programs that use new technologies to promote learning as an aspect of positive youth development. As a theoretical framework, PTD proposes six positive behaviors (six C’s) that should be supported by educational programs that use new educational technologies, such as ScratchJr. These are: Content Creation, Creativity, Communication, Collaboration, Community Building and Choices of Conduct. While evaluating the submitted resources, the DevTech team will make a note of if and how each of these C’s play out in the submitted resources.
To learn more about the PTD framework, check out Prof. Marina Bers’s books: Blocks to Robots: Learning with Technology in the Early Childhood Classroom (Bers, 2008), Designing Digital Experiences for Positive Youth Development: From Playpen to Playground (Bers, 2012), Coding as a Playground: Programming and Computational Thinking in the Early Childhood Classroom (Bers, 2017), Coding as a Playground: Programming and Computational Thinking in the Early Childhood Classroom, Second Edition (Bers, 2020).
How do we use the PTD Framework?
Below are a few of the guiding criteria that our research team will use when rating your submission.
- Curriculum to "create" personally meaningful projects
- Encourages personal expression through creation
- Various types of materials/tools are available and can be used in more than one way
- Encourage children to express their ideas (e.g. through design journal, planning worksheet)
- Encourage diversity of approaches in children's work
- Seek diversity of projects
- Assign open-ended tasks
- Encourages children to focus on the process not the product of their work
- Two-ways communication such as asking open-ended questions, sharing ideas between pairs etc., playing games that involve talking, technology circles (sharing), brainstorming as a class, presenting work to the class
- Activity encourages sharing mistakes openly and models how to cope with them
- Involves pairs or teams working towards the same goal
- Encourages children to help each other
- Defines roles for children to work together
- Facilitates children adding on to each other's ideas/projects
- Encourage sharing final projects to the class: sharing working process (e.g. what went well, what was challenging, and final project)
- Provide support and encouragement to the children to help each other
- Discussion on taking care of materials or to help clean up after class
- Activities display values
- Distribution of materials to encourage making choices
- Encourages discussion of causes and consequences of behavior
