Preschoolers’ Development of Techno-literacy Practices at Home in Canada and Australia

• In Event: 35.025 - Mobile Touch-Screen Devices and Techno-Literacies: Emergent Policies and Practices in Canada and Australia

Abstract

As current surveys (see, e.g. Rideout, 2013) indicate, young children are increasingly engaging with new media and digital technologies. While such studies provide ‘broad stroke’ information regarding time spent with digital devices or with ‘screens’, often there is little communicated about how children are engaging with such technologies. This paper examines and analyses in-depth observational data of Canadian and Australian preschoolers’ multiliteracy practices at home, revealing children’s complex and multidimensional engagements with digital texts and devices. Within the study, informed by complexity thinking and ecological frames (Davis & Sumara, 2008; Doll, 1993; Doll, 2012; Waldrop, 1992), eleven children were observed using participant observation methods in the children’s home environments. Four of the children were located in Australia (2 rural, 2 urban) and seven children were located in Western Canada (2 rural, 2 urban). Green’s (1988; 2012) Three Dimensional (3D) literacy model was used as a conceptual framework to examine the children’s literacy practices. Data indicated that young children (age 3–5) are developing techno-literacy practices and skills (Marsh, 2004, 2010) and navigating digital tools in sophisticated ways, with a number of themes common to the data for children in both countries, and across regions. For example, children were incorporating digital tools into existing play, using digital tools to explore and create within areas of interest and ‘expertise’, ‘remixing’ old texts and tools with new digital tools and texts, and using digital devices frequently in active rather than passive ways. Within the paper, I will analyse several of these themes through presenting detailed research vignettes, in addition to addressing both commonalities and differences in children’s techno-literacy practices, across countries, and participants.

Author

• Suzanna So-Har Wong, University of Alberta