The Playful Learning Center (PLC) hosts a physical lab at the premises of the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki. The PLC lab is a design, development and evaluation space for playful learning methods, environments and tools. The lab is a collaborative hub – a playground of development – for researchers, teacher education, teachers & educators from various sectors, entrepreneurs, parents and children themselves. In the lab, we run sessions during which we develop, experiment and test several prototypes of interfaces and devices as well as learning environments. Children’s participation in the process of co-design is an important part of our research and development work since it allows us to gain an understanding of their needs and interactions with the tools and learning environments. The infrastructure of our lab enables us to collect valuable empirical research data that can contribute to the development of innovative 21st century educational solutions for children and their teachers.
In addition to our our lab, we actively collaborate with educational and cultural institutions in Finland and globally. Our research and development work also takes place in homes and communities, as well as in nature.
