All Fingers and Thumbs: Under Twos and Interactive Story Apps

• In Event: 72.020 - Theorizing Meaning-Making Around iPads in Educational Settings: Directions From Literacy Studies

Abstract

Objectives: This paper critically appraises claims that the iPad appeals to young children because of its weight, portability and intuitive touch-screen interface. It draws on a close analysis of the interactions between young children (14-22 months) and adults sharing interactive story apps in an early years setting.

Theoretical framework: Building on the post-phenomenological tradition, and the notion of the ‘active-relational pair, human-technology’ (Ihde, 1993), the study focuses on the materiality and intense physicality that typifies tablet use. It draws on the literature on gesture, touch and pointing (eg: Clark, 2003; Kendon, 2004; McNeill, 2000), and recent work on haptics (Minogue & Jones, 2006) in order to underscore the ways in which the iPad is positioned within adult-child interaction as a ‘thing in use’.

Methods: The research was based in two early years settings that cater for babies and toddlers. Both were located in an urban area in the North of England. Observations focused on babies and toddlers using iPads - sometimes for the first time, as they looked at interactive stories both with and without adult support.

Data Sources: A variety of story-apps were preloaded including those with links to popular culture (The Lion King and Peppa Pig’s Party) and those which had attracted positive reviews. Young children’s iPad encounters were video-recorded for subsequent analysis. Filming took place over three days in each setting, and two researchers were present on each occasion. Ethical practice was ensured at all times and parental consent for the filming was agreed beforehand.

Results: A multimodal discourse analysis was used to focus on the material interactions that took place, showing how the smallest of actions contribute to the ways in which meaning is created through action in social settings. This highlights the kinaesthetic and haptic skills that are necessary to access meaning in story apps as well as the differences in skills and dispositions that children bring to this work. In these interactions, young children were interested in the touch-screens and keen to take control, whereas adults, already skilled in following their lead in learning contexts, supported explorations sensitively and appropriately. The results show that young children can easily handle iPads, but that this does demand a certain kind of dexterity that draws on the cultural capital of some children and not others. The haptic interface removes a significant obstacle, as hands and fingers operate directly on the screen. However, the analysis shows that young children need to discover precisely how the weight, positioning, and stability of finger taps are used to navigate apps successfully.

Significance: iPads, and the apps that run on them, can be considered as artifacts that support learning and literacy. The human actors in such activity are quite literally ‘entangled’ with the materiality of these artifacts, and draw with varying degrees of success on prior experience. With the widespread adoption of iPads in educational settings, cultural capital may well play out in new and different ways.

Author

• Guy Merchant, Sheffield Hallam University