Taking another look: the affordances of new
technologies for early childhood education
Christine Stephen
School of Education, University of Stirling
EECERA Conference 2015
© Christine Stephen
Research Studies and Publications
The research base
Our story: investigating the potential of an iPad
app
Young children learning with toys and technology
at home
Entering e-Society: Young children’s development
of e-literacies
Interplay: Play, learning & ICT in preschool
settings
Already at a disadvantage?
Come back in two years! A study of the use of ICT
in preschool settings
Selected Publications
Stephen, C. (2015) Young Children Thinking
and Learning With and About Digital
Technologies. In S. Robson &S. Flannery Quinn
(Eds.) The Routledge International Handbook
of Young Children’s Thinking, Abingdon:
Routledge.
Stephen C. & Plowman L (2014) Digital Play, In
L. Brooker, S. Edwards and M. Blaise (Eds.)
Sage Handbook of Play and Learning in Early
Childhood, London: Sage.
Stephen, C., Stevenson, O. & Adey, C. (2013)
Young children engaging with technologies at
home: the influence of family context .Journal
of Early Childhood Research, 11(2):149-164.
Plowman, L., Stephen, C., & McPake, J. (2010).
Growing Up With Technology: Young Children
Learning in a Digital World. London: Routledge
Defining Digital Technologies
Taking another look: the affordances of new
technologies for early childhood education
• Debate about young children using
technologies
• Discourse of play and digital technologies
• Nature of learning afforded by with
technologies
• Mediating influence of pedagogy, families and
children
Debate about young children using technologies
UK media use by 3-4 year olds 2014*
• 51% DVD/Blu-ray recorder/player (21% )
• 29% PC/laptop/netbook with internet (48%)
• 28% tablet computer (26%)
• 18% mobile phone (including smartphone) (19%)
• 14% handheld games player (11%)
• 11% learning games system (e.g. Vtech/Leapster) (2%)
• 5% MP3 player (e.g. iPod) (28%)
• 3% digital book reader (14%)
% in black – in home & child uses/ % in green in home & child does not use
*Ofcom (2014) Children and parents: Media literacy tracker for April to June
2014.
Debate about young children using technologies
‘it is not necessary any more to prove that ICT
matters in early childhood education. New
digital technologies have entered every aspect
of our reality, including families and the lives of
young people.’
Kalaš (2010) Recognizing the Potential of ICT in Early Childhood
Education. Moscow: UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in
Education
Debate about young children using technologies
•
•
Slide removed – limited consent for use of image
Image used to raise questions about whether children experience as playful what
adults refer to as ‘playing with the computer’
Discourse of play and digital technologies
• Epistemic digital play
–
–
–
–
Exploration
Problem-solving
Skill acquisition
Intentional use
• Ludic digital play
– Symbolic
– Innovation/creative
Edwards S & Bird J (2015) Observing and assessing young children’s
digital play in the early years: Using the Digital Play Framework. Journal
of Early Childhood Education DOI: 10.1177/1476718X15579746
Learning afforded by digital technologies
• Cognitive operations
– Matching, sorting, counting, categorising
– Listening, re-telling &acting, navigating content
– Developing emerging concepts
– Painting, drawing
Learning afforded by digital technologies
• Evidence of acquiring
– operational skills
– extending and using knowledge and
understanding of the world
– developing dispositions
Learning afforded by digital technologies
• Acquiring operational skills
– Needed adult help to show him what happens
when clicked on various bits [of PC screen]—then
able to produce work with no further
intervention. (Peter, extract from practitioner observation notes)
– Showed Ben how to use the controls. Listened to
tape. Ben pressed stop, ‘I stopped it’ and then rewound the tape. (Ben, extract from practitioner observation
notes)
Learning afforded by digital technologies
• Extending knowledge and understanding
– Linking spoken and written language & re-telling
stories
• Anna and Abigail at listening centre—using fabric fruit to
count out items mentioned in a story—‘he ate four
strawberries and there is grapes’. (Anna and Abigail listening to
‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’, extract from profile notes)
– Developing mathematical knowledge
• Duncan’s developing mathematical competencies noted as
he played a game on the computer. His matching skills
allowed him to perform confidently on the first two levels
but the third level was too difficult. (From progress log)
Learning afforded by digital technologies
• Developing positive learning dispositions
– Increased confidence and independence
• Josh struggled with the headphones and held them up for help . . .
he needed lots of instruction on how to work the listening centre. .
. . He then listened well. Next day he said ‘I need to listen to the
story, do I push this?’ [putting finger on the green button] (Josh,
practitioner observation notes)
– Willing to persevere in the face of initial difficulties
• After help to learn where to click Malcolm was happy to persevere
and print independently (Malcolm, practitioner observation notes)
– Shared pleasure and enhanced interest
• Look at the delight on his face . . . He is delighted to have
completed the [photograph] process (Innis, profile extract)
Mediating influence of pedagogy, family and
children
• The technology alone is not enough
• Positive, sustained encounters need Guided
Interaction
– Distal
– Proximal
Distal Guided Interaction
Distal guided interaction
Arranging access to the technology
Ensuring access to help
Planning
Setting up activities
Practitioner actions
Devising ways of structuring turn-taking e.g. providing
a sand timer
Sourcing and selecting a broad range of technologies
to meet individual interests
Arranging staff rotas to make sure a practitioner is
available to support children using technologies
Accompanying a child’s return to a technology they
have abandoned
Ensuring balance across curriculum areas
Identifying learning needs for specific children
Choosing an appropriate location in the playroom for
each technology
Adding props to technologies e.g. puppets at the
listening centre
Proximal Guided Interaction
Proximal guided interaction
Practitioner actions
Demonstration
How to use a software tool such as the paintbrush or
eraser
How to frame a picture in viewfinder
Interpersonal engagement and prompting
Sharing pleasure in features such as animation
Suggesting a child tries something new
Staying close by a child for emotional support
Reading
Reading dialogue box on screen
Reading out choices on screen menu
Modelling
Using a pretend mobile phone to order a taxi
Making purchases with a toy bar code scanner and credit
card reader
Providing verbal and non-verbal feedback
Smiling when child succeeds in typing in own name
Admiring photographs taken
Instructing or explaining
Telling child how to use a digital camera
Setting out the routine to begin using electronic musical
keyboard
Discussing what can be seen on a microscope slide
Mediating influence of family
• Dimensions of difference
– Family perspectives on educational efficacy of
technologies
– Perspectives of parents on appropriate ways of
supporting learning
– Family practices and interactions
Mediating influence of family
•
Images removed to comply with limited consent for use.
Children: personal preferences
some images removed to comply with consent for use
Children: discriminating users
• It’s hard to move the arrow because sometimes you
can’t get the arrow to move . . . (Grace)
• using the controller can be hard because there are so
many buttons it’s hard to use them all at once
(Kenneth)
• I’m good at the Bob the Builder game (Catriona)
• I die on that one, it’s rubbish (Freddie)
In Summary
• Digital technologies - welcomed as additional
resources but not replacing traditional activities
and playthings
• No definition of digital play – more productive to
focus on what these resources afford for children
• Is evidence of encounters with digital resources
supporting
– operational learning
– knowledge and understanding of the world
– positive dispositions to learn
In Summary
• Positive encounters with digital technologies
need guided interaction
• Educators and families mediate digital
experiences and children are discriminating
users with distinct preferences
Taking another look: the affordances of new technologies for early
childhood education
• To Follow
Children, Educators and Early
Learning in a Digital Age
Christine Stephen and Susan
Edwards
Dr Christine Stephen
School of Education
University of Stirling
Scotland
christine.stephen@stir.ac.uk