DigIQ Module 2: Children’s interests and the digital
Focus
Child-centred pedagogies that support learning through children’s interests and play prevail in early years curricula.
This philosophy should also permeate our planning for and use of digital technologies. That is, we do not take a position that digital technology should be the focus of the learning experience (unless there is good reason, such as an explicit discussion of digital literacies or safety, or it could only be done – or only done in this way – digitally) or that digital technologies should be used simply because they are available. That said, research supports that when digital technologies are used to follow children’s interests:
- Children are more motivated to learn.
- Children make sense of their world through experimentation, using digital technologies enables children ‘see’ things and understand phenomena they might otherwise not be able to.
- Digital resources can support children’s motivation to learn new concepts while also supporting their natural curiosity.
- Playful learning can be digital and non-digital; in fact, children rarely see their play with such divides. The two could and should flow seamlessly between each other.
- Joint discovery with educators and peers to find answers and solutions to what is unknown helps children develop inquiry and problem-solving skills.
Listen
Lisa and Steven talk about ways to connect use of digital technologies to children’s interest and curiosity.
Listen to Lisa and Steven in the Digital Interactions podcast episode Children’s interests and the digital.
View a practice example
In this example, children collaborate to create a concept for a film, script it, act in and film it, and then were supported to edit it together.
At all steps, children had the autonomy to pursue their interests and ideas. Surrounding that, adults supported the children’s learning and activity on topics such as story arcs, scripts, videography, and editing (e.g., music, sound effects, transitions, filters).
Consider:
- Where and how were children’s interests pursued across the experience, including in its digital elements (e.g., selecting film type, plot points, script, costumes, roles, editing)?
- Which of the children’s interests might have been more difficult to explore or eventuate without digital technologies (e.g., bringing story elements to life through sound effects, being able to view back ‘takes’ and redo them where desired, to see their vision brought to life)?
Watch the practice example.
Action
Foster children’s curiosity and natural exploration
Engaging the children in exploration that can support the development of their scientific thinking – using questions like ‘I wonder what…’, ‘what happens if…’, ‘why?’ – can be starting points of conversations to support children’s exploration and curiosity through play-based inquiry. Some technology-enhanced strategies you could explore include:
- Children may enjoy blowing bubbles and may be curious about what happens when they pop. Try popping them and use the slow-motion function on the camera to capture what our eyes can’t. You could ask: What colours do you see in the bubbles? How hard do you need to blow to make the bubbles? How long did the bubbles last? What happens to the liquid that makes the outer layer of the bubble? What was inside the bubble? How do we think a bubble is made? What are its key ingredients and what do we need to do?
- Children might enjoy water play. The slow-motion video function can also be used to record the splash made by different sized objects as they fall into a bowl of water. You could ask: How can we measure the size of the splash? What do you think will make the splash bigger/smaller? Why? Can we make the same size splash with different objects?
Use digital technology to inspire and check children’s predictions and ideas, leading to even more why questions and new investigations. Discussing predictions and findings is a wonderful way for children’s curiosity to come full circle and invites even more questioning about the world.
Explore
Some more reading on this area.
Reflect
Reflect on your own practice and self-assess: to what extent you use digital technologies in the following ways?
Digital technologies are used to pursue children’s interests. Digital technologies are now ubiquitous. Digital opportunities and outcomes are highlighted in the Early Years Learning Framework V2.0, and digital literacies will be increasingly important for our children to navigate their education, their relationships, their world. We cannot avoid digital technologies in early childhood and expect children to be safe, competent and productive with digital technologies in later life. As with everything, we improve through learning, practice and effective strategies. In early childhood, this means we start with the design and deployment of digital opportunities that are well aligned and differentiated to meet different children’s interests, needs and current progress.
Children have opportunities to take an active role in digital aspects of learning and play experiences. Children often have as much interest in digital technologies as they do with the activities, play and learning they enable. Rather than children being given no opportunity to take an active role in digital aspects of an experience, we want children to be able to take an active lead role in using the digital technologies – to lead and meaningfully direct digital aspects, with flexibility to pursue new uses and directions.
Digital technologies are used to enable children’s active engagement and creation. We have all sorts of evidence of the benefit of children’s active intellectual engagement (e.g., dialogic reading, deep thinking, questioning, sustained shared thinking) rather than passive reception of new information. We encourage a balance that skews heavily toward active production – rather than passive consumption – using digital technology. Generating. Creating. Coming using digital and non-digital resources to create a new product, process or outcome.