Cathy Burnett

Technology and literacy in early childhood educational settings: A review of research:

This literature review provides an overview of research into technology and literacy for children aged 0—8 in educational settings from 2003—2009. The article begins by exploring the different assumptions about the role of digital texts that underpin the studies considered, identifying three loose categories of studies which position technology as: deliverer of literacy; site for interaction around texts; and medium for meaning-making. Following this, aspects of actor-network theory (Latour, 2005) are used to consider other ways that technology and children may be ‘acting upon’ literacy in educational settings through recontexualizing meanings from other domains. The article concludes by arguing that there is a need for more extensive exploratory research in this field, which considers how digital practices within educational settings relate to other dimensions of children’s literacy learning, in order to better understand how new technologies are and could be contributing to children’s literacy within educational settings. It suggests that actor-network theory may offer a way of conceptualizing young children’s engagement with digital texts in new ways.

The (im)materiality of literacy: the significance of subjectivity to new literacies research

This article deconstructs the online and offline experience to show its complexities and idiosyncratic nature. It proposes a theoretical framework designed to conceptualise aspects of meaning-making across on- and offline contexts. In arguing for the ‘(im)materiality’ of literacy, it makes four propositions which highlight the complex and diverse relationships between the immaterial and material associated with meaning-making. Complementing existing sociocultural perspectives on literacy, the article draws attention to the significance of relationships between space, mediation, materiality and embodiment to literacy practices. This in turn emphasises the importance of the subjective in understanding how different locations, experiences and so forth inflect literacy practice. The article concludes by drawing on the Deleuzian concept of the ‘baroque’ to suggest that this focus on articulations between the material and immaterial helps us to see literacy as multiply and flexibly situated.

Digital connections: transforming literacy in the primary school

Much has been written about the transformative influence of new technology on the school curriculum, but only a small number of studies have focused on the practical implications for primary literacy. The dominant paradigm seems less concerned with transformation, instead favouring a view of ‘technology as enrichment’. This case study examines the possibilities of transformation through an electronically mediated partnership between two primary schools in the North of England. Childrens digital texts are analysed alongside interview and observational data in order to document what transformation might look like in practice. The study illustrates how technology can be used to promote new literacy practices in the classroom, through the production of new kinds of texts. It also documents the emergence of peer‐based learning relationships and changing perceptions of the teachers role.

Investigating pupils’ interactions around digital texts: a spatial perspective on the ‘classroom-ness’ of digital literacy practices in schools.

This paper complements debates around use of new technologies and literacy in education by proposing a focus on “classroom-ness.” It highlights the significance of incidental, everyday and ephemeral practices associated with classroom technology-use. Using examples from a study of primary pupils’ interactions around digital texts, it argues that we must acknowledge the distinctiveness of technology-use in classroom contexts but also see the spaces associated with those contexts as continually constructed, relational and heterogeneous. This helps us look beyond binary distinctions – between in/out of school and global/local practices, on/off-screen and on/offline activity, material/virtual contexts and official/unofficial discourses – to recognise the complex and nuanced ways that children make meaning around new technologies. It is proposed that this theoretical lens – in recognising the complexity of classroom-ness – can help us better understand the barriers and opportunities associated with effective integration of new technologies in educational contexts.

Pre-service teachers’ digital literacy practices: exploring contingency in identity and digital literacy in and out of educational contexts

This paper highlights the significance of teacher identity to debates about the disconnect between digital literacies within and beyond school by exploring pre-service teachers’ perspectives on digital literacy practices in their personal and professional lives. It uses aspects of Giddens’ work on self-identity to frame an analysis that suggests firstly that individuals engage in digital literacies in ways that reflect and uphold context-specific identities, and secondly that the drive to sustain a consistent ‘narrative of self’ may be significant to individuals’ engagement with new technologies. This in turn highlights the contingency of digital experience, which may be framed by a fluctuating sense of appropriateness, legitimacy and risk. This makes a new contribution to understanding why skills, orientations and attitudes associated with digital literacies do (or do not) survive the transition to educational contexts and is particularly relevant at a time when policy and research have suggested that current educational practice is outmoded. The paper argues that, if progress is to be made in investigating and developing pedagogies that capitalise on the potential of new technologies, then greater consideration needs to be given to how teachers experience digital literacy practices across different domains of their lives.

Beyond the Frame: Exploring Children's Literacy Practices.

The aim of this small-scale research project was to examine the literacy events children choose to engage in outside school. Two groups of Primary School children were involved in investigating the use of literacy in their lives, using disposable cameras to record literacy events and texts. The photographs and the discussion stimulated by them provided evidence that these children used literacy in richly diverse ways for purposes which they saw as meaningful. Although limited in size and scope, the study showed that uses of literacy presented by these children reflected community literacy practices (as identified by Barton & Hamilton, 1998). However, it was also clear that the children acted with considerable autonomy, motivation and creativity in making their use of literacy meaningful to them. This paper provides a report on the project and discusses the implications of these findings for the teaching of literacy in school.

The (im)materiality of educational space: interactions between material, connected and textual dimensions of networked technology use in schools

In contributing to understanding about the barriers and opportunities associated with new technologies in educational settings, this article explores dimensions of the educational spaces associated with using networked technologies in contemporary classrooms. After considering how educational spaces may be ‘produced’ (to use Lefebvres term), it draws on narratives of classroom practice to explore three dimensions of educational space – material, connected and textual – and considers the implications that these, and the relationships between them, may have for the use of networked technologies in education. It concludes by setting an agenda for future research, arguing that more extensive empirical work is needed to explore how these dimensions intersect and the implications this has for pedagogy. The need for such research is seen as particularly pressing given increased calls for transformative pedagogies which demand new ways of interacting within and between educational spaces.

Medium for empowerment or a `centre for everything': Students' experience of control in virtual learning environments within a university context

In maximising opportunities to nurture rich and productive learning communities, there is a need to know more about the cultures and sub-cultures that surround virtual learning environments (VLEs). Drawing from a small-scale interview study of students’ digital practices, this paper explores how different discourses may have patterned a group of students’ experiences of VLEs. Unlike studies which have focused upon evaluations of specific projects or interventions, this study investigated their experience across their course. It explores the student identities they associated with digital environments and the power relationships which seemed to pattern how they positioned themselves (or felt positioned) as learners. Whilst none were intimidated by technical aspects, the student identities available to them seemed to vary, as did their perceptions of the student identities associated with university-sponsored digital environments. The analysis considers three aspects of their experience: how they related to the VLE itself, how they related to others through this, and the alternative communities they created to attempt to manage their engagement with the VLE. The paper concludes by arguing for further research which focuses on the broader student experience across courses in order to explore how university-based digital environments intersect with students’ identities as learners.

Being together in classrooms at the interface of the physical and virtual: implications for collaboration in on/off-screen sites

This article contributes to thinking about collaboration in classroom/virtual environments by considering how children (aged 10–11) engage in the process of ‘being together’ at the interface of the physical and virtual. It argues that, if educators are to develop effective pedagogies that capitalise on opportunities for collaborative and participatory learning, there is a need for nuanced accounts of the ways that children and young people relate to one another across on/off-screen sites and for new ways of conceptualising their interactions. Using a four-part story based on an illustrative episode from a longitudinal classroom-based study, the article explores how a focus on what Schatzki terms a ‘practice meshwork’ can highlight how relationships are shaped by and shape diverse practices. In particular it explores how embodied relations with things in classrooms mediate ways of ‘being together’ around classroom/virtual environments. It suggests that different timespaces are consequently evoked as children play together on and around screens in class. Drawing on these ideas, the article advances five propositions about ‘being together’ that arise from seeing relationships as entangled with multiple practices. It ends by arguing that, in planning for and researching collaboration, it is important to acknowledge how these five dimensions interface.

Constructions of professional knowledge among student and practising primary teachers: paradigmatic and narrative orientations

The way in which professional knowledge is presented in initial teacher education (ITE) in England and Wales is significant. Not only is it emblematic of the way teaching itself is conceived, but it is likely to influence the way that students engage with their development. The following analysis therefore describes and critiques the kinds of knowledge presented within the predominant model of primary ITE in England and Wales. Bruner’s concepts of paradigmatic and narrative modes of thought are used to frame this analysis. Firstly, the presentation of professional knowledge within different dimensions of primary ITE is examined: in the curriculum; in higher education institutions; and in school. Next, life history research from the last 20 years is used to explore what practising teachers have seen as significant in the formation of their professional knowledge in order to create a critical perspective on the kind of knowledge evident in ITE. Various tensions between paradigmatic and narrative orientations towards knowledge located within both ITE and within teachers’ lives are explored and ultimately seen as contributing in complex and ambiguous ways to what Clandinin and Connelly refer to as a ‘professional knowledge landscape’ (1998). Ultimately, it is argued that recognizing this notion of a ‘professional knowledge landscape’ is useful in framing the kind of teacher professional knowledge required in ITE. The implications of this for primary ITE programmes are also discussed.