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This paper aims to be a think piece that promotes discussion around the design of coding toys for children. In particular, the authors examine three different toys that have some sort of block-based coding interface. The authors juxtapose three different design features and the demands they place on young children learning to code. To examine the toys, the authors apply a framework developed based on Gibson’s theory of affordances and Palmer’s external representations. The authors look specifically at the toys: interface design, intended play scenario and representational conventions for computational ideas.

As a research team, the authors have been playing with toys, observing their own children play with the toys and using them in kindergarten classrooms. In this paper, the authors reflect specifically on the design of the toys and the demands they place on children.

The authors make no claims about whether one toy/design approach is superior to another. However, the differences that the authors articulate should serve as a provocation for researchers and designers to be mindful about what demands and expectations they place on young children as they learn to code and use code to learn in any given system.

As mentioned above, the authors want to start a discussion about design of these toys and how they shape children's experience with coding.

There is a push to get coding and computational thinking into K-12, but there is not enough research on what this looks like in early childhood. Further, while research is starting to emerge on block-based programming vs text-based for older children and adults, little research has been done on the representational form of code for young children. The authors hope to start a discussion on design of coding toys for children.

Much remains unknown about how young children orient to computational objects and how we as learning scientists can orient to young children as computational thinkers. While some research exists on how children learn programming, very little has been written about how they learn the technical skills needed to operate technologies or to fix breakdowns that occur in the code or the machine. The purpose of this study is to explore how children perform technical knowledge in tangible programming environments.

The current study examines the organization of young children’s technical knowledge in the context of a design-based study of Kindergarteners learning to code using robot coding toys, where groups of children collaboratively debugged programs. The authors conducted iterative rounds of qualitative coding of video recordings in kindergarten classrooms and interaction analysis of children using coding robots.

The authors found that as children repaired bugs at the level of the program and at the level of the physical apparatus, they were performing essential technical knowledge; the authors focus on how demonstrating technical knowledge was organized pedagogically and collectively achieved.

Drawing broadly from studies of the social organization of technical work in professional settings, we argue that technical knowledge is easy to overlook but essential for learning to repair programs. The authors suggest how tangible programming environments represent pedagogically important contexts for dis-embedding young children’s essential technical knowledge from the more abstract knowledge of programming.

In England, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) cannot be administered to service users who make an advance decision to refuse the treatment, unless in life-threatening circumstances. In a sector where person-centred practice is revered, no prior research has investigated whether community mental health practitioners (CMHPs) encourage service users to make advance decisions about ECT. This study aims to explore whether CMHPs have supported advance decision-making about ECT and whether their profession, attitudes towards and knowledge of the treatment affect this.

A quantitative online survey was completed by n = 120 CMHPs (nurses, social workers and occupational therapists). The validated Questionnaire on Attitudes and Knowledge of ECT was used.

In total, 93% of participants knew service users who had undergone ECT, yet only 12% had supported a service user to make an advance decision about ECT. Compared to those who had not supported advance decision-making, those who had shown significantly higher knowledge and a more positive attitude. Nurses and those who had worked in the mental health field for over 10 years had significantly higher knowledge of ECT.

CMHPs are well placed to support advance decision-making about ECT. Increased knowledge about advance decisions and ECT may bolster the uptake of advance decision-making, thus greater training is recommended.