KidCode: using email to structure interactions for elementary mathematics instruction

• Authors: Michelle Baker;Judith Levy Cohen;Babette Moeller
• Venue: CSCL '97 Proceedings of the 2nd international conference on Computer support for collaborative learning
• Year: 1997

KidCode is email-based software designed to supplement the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) elementary curriculum standards by addressing the need to develop conceptual links between concrete mathematical activities and mathematics as a language. It provides children with the opportunity to explore mathematics as one of many symbol systems that have been built for the purposes of communication. We designed a sequence of four two-person games centered on the theme of codes and secret messages and conducted formative evaluation of the games. By pairing tools for the creation of codes and authoring of coded messages with a full featured email messaging system, KidCode enables children to gain experience with many kinds of symbolic representations. Message authoring can consist of text, graphics, and even animations. Similarly, with KidCode children can advance from an understanding of symbolic representation of object/noun type entities for text and simple pictures to coded representations of spatial relationships and, finally, to representation of operator actions. Our work provides an example of how mathematics instruction can be based on the use of email software to structure cooperative interactions among elementary aged students. For formative studies, we crafted materials of paper and poster board with varied examples at different levels of difficulty that could be used for multiple rounds of play. These materials were used throughout the research period in evaluations with three adults and twenty children in the first through fourth grades (ages 5-10 yrs.) from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds. As the research progressed, the materials were revised or expanded in order to address issues that arose during the evaluation sessions. Some of the games were modified considerably after observing children play the games. Our research suggests that, taken together, the games improve the children's facility with symbolic processing. In this paper we describe one of the KidCode games - Rebus - in detail. We explain how formative evaluation based on paper materials was used to test design ideas for the KidCode software and develop a sequence of games to scaffold children's understanding of symbol systems and that would work effectively in an electronic mail context. The figure on the cover page shows the email inbox from a screen dump of a Macromedia Director prototype of the software. The bus icon indicates a Rebus game message.