2016. [open access] Rethinking context: digital technologies and children’s everyday lives (original) (raw)
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2015. [open access] Researching young children's everyday uses of technology in the family home
This paper is available open access. Studies of the everyday uses of technology in family homes have tended to overlook the role of children and, in particular, young children. A study that was framed by an ecocultural approach focusing on children's play and learning with toys and technologies is used to illustrate some of the methodological challenges of conducting research with young children in the home. This theoretical framework enabled us to identify and develop a range of methods that illuminated the home's unique mix of inhabitants, learning opportunities and resources and to investigate parents' ethnotheories, or cultural beliefs, that gave rise to the complex of practices, values and attitudes and their intersections with technology and support for learning in the home. This resulted in a better understanding of the role of technology in the lives of these 3- and 4-year-old children.
Young children engaging with technologies at home: The influence of family context
Journal of Early Childhood Research , 2013
"This article is about the ways in which young children engage with technological toys and resources at home and, in particular, the ways in which the family context makes a difference to young children’s engagement with these technologies. The data reviewed come from family interviews and parent-recorded video of four case study children as they used specific resources: a screen-based games console designed for family use, a technology-mediated reading scheme, a child’s games console and two technological ‘pets’. We found the same repertoire of direct pedagogical actions across the families when they supported their children’s use of the resources, yet the evidence makes it clear that the child’s experience was different in each home. The article goes on to present evidence that four dimensions of family context made a difference to children’s engagement with technological toys and resources at home. We argue that understanding children’s experiences with technologies at home necessitates finding out about the distinct family contexts in which they engage with the resources. "
The Technologisation of Childhood? Young Children and Technology in the Home
Children & Society, 2010
We describe an 18-month empirical investigation of three- and four-year-old children’s uses of technology at home, based on a survey of 346 families and 24 case studies. The findings are reported in the context of social commentators’ anxieties about the ways in which childhood is being transformed by technology. Although we report evidence of some parental disquiet about the role of technology in children’s lives, we illustrate some of the complexities in families’ attitudes to, and uses of, technology and conclude that it is not perceived by parents to be the threat to modern childhood that is claimed.
2010. The technologisation of childhood? Young children and technology in the home
We describe an eighteen-month empirical investigation of three- and four-year-old children’s uses of technology at home, based on a survey of 346 families and 24 case studies. The findings are reported in the context of social commentators’ anxieties about the ways in which childhood is being transformed by technology. Although we report evidence of some parental disquiet about the role of technology in children’s lives we illustrate some of the complexities in families’ attitudes to, and uses of, technology and conclude that it is not perceived by parents to be the threat to modern childhood that is claimed.
British Journal of Educational Technology
Ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) and the Internet of things (IoT) are turning into everyday household technology at an ever-increasing pace, for example, in the form of connected toys. However, while ubicomp and IoT are changing and shaping children's digital and technological landscape, not much is known about how children perceive these omnipresent and concealed forms of digital technology. This qualitatively oriented paper explores 3-to 6-year-old Finnish children's perceptions of ubicomp and IoT via interviews and a design task. Initially, the children were skeptical toward the idea that tangible objects, such as toys, could be computer and/or Internet enabled. However, these perceptions were subject to change when children were introduced to a scientific conception of what computers and the Internet are and asked to apply their knowledge to a technological design task. Implications for early years digital literacy education are discussed in the paper.
Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 2020
Young children’s engagements with digital technologies form part of their emergent everyday literacy practices. The study reported here derives from the pan-European study ‘A Day in the Digital Lives of Children aged 0-3’. The methodology was centred on the videoing of an entire day’s experiences of a child aged under 3, together with a reflective interview with the parents and inventories related to digital access, skills and activities of the child. In this paper, we look at three children in Spain, Sweden and England, respectively. We examine our data through three prisms. (1) Spatio-temporal: We consider the children’s engagements in terms of their appropriation of space, in relationships with others in the home and the intimate geographies of young children’s digital literacies. (2) Parental discourse: We use the tensions and contradictions for families framework to examine the selection and monitoring of digital literacies. (3) Practice: Drawing on the first two prisms, we zoo...
Ubiquitous systems and the family: thoughts about the networked home
Proceedings of the 5th Symposium on …, 2009
Developments in ubiquitous and pervasive computing herald a future in which computation is embedded into our daily lives. Such a vision raises important questions about how people, especially families, will be able to engage with and trust such systems whilst ...
‘A New Sense of Place?’ Mobile, ‘Wearable’ ICT Devices and the Geographies of Urban Childhood
In this paper we describe a new research initiative, 'A New Sense of Place?', which involves the collaboration of private- and public-sector partners. Its purpose is to explore and develop the interface between children and new mobile 'wearable' computing and communication devices. The research team is particularly interested in how these new technologies might be applied to help children (re-)engage with urban spaces. In the paper we give a description of wearable computing devices; briefly set out some contexts of children's geographies into which they are emerging; and describe the rationale and objectives of the project. We then give an account of a two-day workshop in which 10 children were introduced to and enabled to experience, work with and respond to these new technologies. The research shows that children are capable of handling and exploiting these technologies and are able to conceptualise their incorporation into their everyday lives. Also, it reveals that the creation of 'virtual' digital landscapes,which these technologies allow, has the potential to representadult-ordered spaces in more 'child-friendly' forms. Lastly, the programme opens up new questions of power, surveillance and childhood technology relations.