Digital Personalization in Early Childhood

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Digital personalization is an emerging interdisciplinary research field, with application to a variety of areas including design, education and publication industry. This book focuses on children’s education and literacy resources, which have undergone important changes with the ‘personalization revolution’ in the early 21st century. The author develops original insights from educational research and her own studies concerned with digital and non-digital personalization, to discuss in a clear and critical way the thinking, research issues and practical implications of this new field. She scrutinises the character of technology-based personalized education to substantiate the claim that the current models of personalized education tend to be technology- and business-driven, with little pedagogical understanding of the social value of personalization. Research involving touchscreens, personalized books and 2-8-year olds is interrogated for its impact on children’s development of language, creativity, identity, as well as family dynamics and classroom dialogue. The literature available on digital and non-digital personalization is discussed in relation to five key themes of personalized education, the so-called 5As: autonomy, authorship, aesthetics, attachment and authenticity. It is argued that the 5As need to be anchored in humanist principles for a sustainable pedagogy and practice. Based on the insights from research with typically and atypically developing children, Kucirkova proposes personalised pluralisation, as a pedagogical framework of personalized education for the future. The book aims to help scholars and professionals understand the connections between personalization and literacy, personalization and education, and personalization and wider socio-moral issues

How Can Digital Personal(ized) Books Enrich the Language Arts Curriculum?

Digital personal(ized) books are a relatively recent addition to the rich repertoire of literacy resources available to pre-K and elementary school teachers. This article summarizes the key ways in which personal(ized) books can enrich the language arts curriculum, drawing on a series of empirically based examples. The value of personalization in the digital stories is explained theoretically using the framework of five As: autonomy, authorship, authenticity, attachment, and aesthetics. The five As apply to personal(ized) stories created for, or by, young students and are used to generate some practical suggestions for future use of touchscreens in the classroom

Digital Technologies, Children's Learning and the Affective Dimensions of Family Relationships in the Home

This chapter considers how children’s use of digital technologies at home shapes family relationships, notably those of parents and young children growing up in some Minority World families, typically characterized by an increasing access to and prevalence of digital technologies in their everyday lives. The chapter reviews literature on digital technologies in the context of families, with a particular focus on touchscreen technologies. The chapter uses a number of examples to illustrate the wider implications of technology use on family dynamics. It offers an exploration of how the physical design of touchscreens, and in particular the different touch points through which the device can be accessed simultaneously or sequentially by different individuals, can influence the affective flows between children and different individuals in families (parents, grandparents) as they interact together. The review of previous research into affective dimensions of technology use at home is theoretically guided by Goffman’s (1972) consideration of participation frameworks and ecological huddles, as well as by the more recent insights of Goodwin (2000) as to how affect plays out through embodied interaction in the context of a family setting. Vygotsky’s (1967, 1978) notion of sociocultural learning and the contextual nature of learning are used as a framework in the review of studies focused on child’s learning and adult–child interaction with touchscreens. The chapter provides insights into the learning opportunities of touchscreens in family contexts in relation to two key affordances of touchscreens: touch manipulation and personalization. It considers the verbal as well as nonverbal modes of communication in examples of interaction occurring around touchscreens in the home. Recommendations for future research are provided along with the suggestion that children’s learning and the affect flows, which emerge in interactions involving digital technologies, reflect the nature of the technologies’ affordances situated in the wider sociotechnical context in which interactions are unfolding

The Graphical Access Challenge for People with Visual Impairments: Positions and Pathways Forward

Graphical access is one of the most pressing challenges for individuals who are blind or visually impaired. This chapter discusses some of the factors underlying the graphics access challenge, reviews prior approaches to addressing this long-standing information access barrier, and describes some promising new solutions. We specifically focus on touchscreen-based smart devices, a relatively new class of information access technologies, which our group believes represent an exemplary model of user-centered, needs-based design. We highlight both the challenges and the vast potential of these technologies for alleviating the graphics accessibility gap and share the latest results in this line of research. We close with recommendations on ideological shifts in mindset about how we approach solving this vexing access problem, which will complement both technological and perceptual advancements that are rapidly being uncovered through a growing research community in this domain

Socio-material directions for developing empirical research on children’s e-reading: A systematic review and thematic synthesis of the literature across disciplines

This review integrates literature on cross-disciplinary quantitative and qualitative studies related to children’s reading on screen published between January 2016 and September 2017, with a focus on the researchers’ epistemological perspectives on knowledge and learning. Johri’s (2011) framework of socio-material assemblages, which synthesises epistemological dualities, is used to examine the ways in which researchers conceptualise children’s learning with digital books. The review shows that extant empirical studies map directly onto the social part of Johri’s framework (examination of child and adult variables and behavioural characteristics) and onto the material aspects of children’s digital books (examination of books’ contents and features). Only theoretical studies pay equal attention to social and material aspects in their conceptualisation of children’s reading on screen. Overall, it is recommended that in addition to cross-disciplinary and multiple methods, researchers consider socio-material assemblages to advance the field. A socio-material perspective could address time and space shifts in children’s reading on screen and might provide a springboard for future epistemological developments within the field

Developing E-Learning at the British Postal Museum & Archive

In this project, we designed an educational e- learning game for the British Postal Museum & Archive. Our game targets children ages 7-11 and builds on topics in the U.K.\u27s National Curriculum for this age group. The game highlights time periods to be featured in BPMA\u27s upcoming new exhibit space, introducing visitors to facts, characters, and stories from postal history. Our designÂ’s flexible structure will allow the BPMA to modify the content as their exhibit design evolves

An Integrative Study of the Effect of Early Learning with Touchscreen Technologies Using SAMR Framework: A Meta-analysis and Systematic Review

Digital technologies have brought about a remarkable shift in early childhood learning. Among different technological devices, touchscreens have attracted special interest among young children given their intuitiveness and interactive features. However, the existing empirical findings regarding the effect of this technology on young children’s learning are not consistent. Touchscreen technologies have been also postulated to have the potential for transforming learning experiences. However, there is a dearth of research explicating if the transformative potentials of touchscreens are benefited in early learning and examining the factors/conditions contributing to the improvement of young children\u27s learning with touchscreens. To address these gaps in the literature, the present research was performed using an integrated format, consisting of an already published systematic review on the effect of touchscreens on early learning and a meta-analysis/systematic review. This research targeted four relevant objectives: 1) to provide comprehensive up-to-date evidence of the pooled effect of touchscreen technology on early childhood learning, 2) to investigate the effect of factors/conditions acting as potential moderators on young children\u27s learning with touchscreens, 3) to provide an up-to-date systematic review of how touchscreens are integrated into early childhood education based on the SAMR framework, and 4) to explore if the touchscreen integration levels (i.e., transformative and enhancement levels of SAMR) vary the effect of learning with these devices. The meta-analysis estimated the overall effect of touchscreen devices on the learning performance of 2- to 8-year-old children and examined the moderators of this effect, based on 59 effect sizes derived from 57 empirical articles. The overall analysis was indicative of a significant touchscreen learning effect (d=0.48), demonstrating the beneficial effect of learning with touchscreens for young children. Furthermore, the moderator analysis revealed that learning domain, adult’s feedback, and technology integration level significantly moderated the impact of touchscreens on early learning outcomes. Research implications give different stakeholders, such as instructional designers, educators, and teachers, insights into the impact of touchscreens on early learning under different conditions to benefit from these educational tools for improving early learning

Ubiquitous computing and natural interfaces for environmental information

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia do Ambiente, perfil Gestão e Sistemas AmbientaisThe next computing revolution‘s objective is to embed every street, building, room and object with computational power. Ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) will allow every object to receive and transmit information, sense its surroundings and act accordingly, be located from anywhere in the world, connect every person. Everyone will have the possibility to access information, despite their age, computer knowledge, literacy or physical impairment. It will impact the world in a profound way, empowering mankind, improving the environment, but will also create new challenges that our society, economy, health and global environment will have to overcome. Negative impacts have to be identified and dealt with in advance. Despite these concerns, environmental studies have been mostly absent from discussions on the new paradigm. This thesis seeks to examine ubiquitous computing, its technological emergence, raise awareness towards future impacts and explore the design of new interfaces and rich interaction modes. Environmental information is approached as an area which may greatly benefit from ubicomp as a way to gather, treat and disseminate it, simultaneously complying with the Aarhus convention. In an educational context, new media are poised to revolutionize the way we perceive, learn and interact with environmental information. cUbiq is presented as a natural interface to access that information

A Mixed Methodology Study of the Effects of Age, Touchscreens, New Technology, Automation, and Interactions on Pilot Performance

This study examined the effects of age on new technology, touchscreens, automation, and the interaction with pilot performance. Touchscreens have been introduced on the aviation flight deck, combining all pilot tasks in one device in multiple locations. This study is one of the first to examine pilots, touchscreens and age. Previous studies focused on vibration, turbulence, interfaces, ergonomics, and location for incorporating them on the flight deck. This was conducted as an online survey with pilots that have worked with touchscreens in flight operations. The results found that age has an effect on pilots interacting and working with touchscreens. This effect was found with pilots age 60 and above, but there were issues within all age groups interacting and working with touchscreens. Finding the information or path was one issue, as well as layout, design and interface mentioned by all age groups. More training, using actual touchscreens or training devices exactly replicating them, and repetition were stated as ways to alleviate these issues. The amount of touch sensitivity and pressure that are needed to interact and accomplish tasks was another issue that was stated. There is a misunderstanding in some pilots about the differences in devices and touchscreens, capacitive and resistive touch, and the reasons for this. Some pilots that understood the differences still wanted a capacitive touchscreen, like personal devices. The researcher noted that completion of the entire survey from the participants increased as the age increased and the youngest age category had the highest dropout rate