Lorna Arnott

Are we allowed to blink? Young children’s leadership and ownership while mediating interactions around technologies

Abstract This article describes the formation of childrens social interactions around technologies in preschools. This paper presents evidence from a study that explores how 3- to 5-year-old children construct their social interactions through the mediation of their peers while using technological resources. Utilising a systematic and iterative data collection and analysis cycle, childrens interactions with 24 technological resources were examined over a nine-month period and across three phases. Findings reveal that children draw on social status roles and technological positions to gain control and influence over technologies and their peers. When combined these roles and positions affect childrens agency to determine social interactions around technological resources. In essence, this paper demonstrates that a complex social dynamic, in addition to technological artefacts, shape childrens social interactions in contemporary technology-rich preschools.

An ecological exploration of young children’s digital play: framing children’s social experiences with technologies in early childhood

Abstract This article outlines an ecological framework for describing children’s social experiences during digital play. It presents evidence from a study that explored how 3- to 5-year-old children negotiated their social experiences as they used technologies in preschool. Utilising a systematic and iterative cycle of data collection and analysis, children’s interactions with 24 technological resources were examined over a nine-month period and across three phases. Findings reveal that children played in clusters, exhibiting a multitude of social behaviours and interactions and varied degrees of social participation, and assumed various social status roles and technological positions. These behaviours formed part of a Digital Play System, which in turn was influenced by the Preschool System, which comprises children and practitioners as active agents, technological affordances, and the cultural systems, routines and practices of the early childhood setting. Ultimately, children’s social experiences during digital play cannot be determined by any single element of the ecological system.

Lessons from using iPads to understand young children's creativity

This article explores the use of iPads as part of a child-centred data collection approach to understand young children’s creativity. Evidence is presented from a small study of three- to five-year-old children’s creative play. Analysis of the children’s engagement with iPad video diaries and free-to-use tablet applications was logged across two early educational settings over a three-month period. The findings suggest that iPads offer a mechanism to allow children to articulate their creative play and to encourage involvement in the research process. However, bespoke research software to use with early years children is required to improve this process.

Children's negotiation tactics and socio-emotional self-regulation in child-led play experiences: the influence of the preschool pedagogic culture

ABSTRACT Early Childhood Education (ECE) typically positions the child at the centre of their own learning, with a high degree of child-initiated and child-led experiences. As such, ECE is often characterized by ‘free play’ during which children are provided with opportunities to manage and negotiate their socio-emotional interactions. This process of self-regulation is carefully moulded by a complex preschool Pedagogic Culture. Drawing on data from two projects that investigated childrens social and creative play through exploratory qualitative observations, interviews and child-centred play-based methodologies, this article describes how children interpret cues in formal ECE settings to determine how they manage and regulate their play experiences and socio-emotional interactions. Findings demonstrate that children interpreted four elements of the Pedagogic Culture: Child-Centred Pedagogies, Structural Hierarchies, Rules and Regulations, and Agency and Power. Children manoeuvred these elements of the Pedagogic Culture to shape their negotiation tactics and socio-emotional self-regulation.

The changing nature of early childhood learning ecologies, experiences and pedagogies in a digital era

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the editor discusses the various articles published within the issue on such topics as children and digital technologies, smart toys and children, and childrens learning using tablets.