Children's agency and reading with story-apps: considerations of design, behavioural and social dimensions

A comprehensive understanding of children’s motivation to read e-books requires a multifaceted and contextualized conceptualization of children’s agency. In this study, agency was operationalized as a set of behaviour indicators of children’s control (behavioural agency), adults’ perceptions of reader identities afforded by the content and format of books (social agency), and specific multimedia and interactive features that afford personalisation (agentic design). In a comparative qualitative case study, seven preschool children and their mothers were observed reading four story-based interactive e-books (story-apps). Multimethod analysis that combined design evaluation with observational and interview data revealed behavioural agency was demonstrated in the children’s frequent, prolonged, and repetitive physical engagement with the story-apps. Social agency became foregrounded in relation to constitutive reader identities. Agentic design was related to children’s sense of autonomy. The findings have implications for how we theorize, operationalize, and apply the concept of agency in children’s e-books and reading for pleasure

Theorising materiality in children's digital books

Participatory literacies are new ways of experiencing narratives and of “interpreting, making, sharing and belonging in increasingly globally and digitally mediated cultures” (Wohlwend 2017a: 62). This paper discusses the material features of children’s digital books and the extent to which they support participatory literacies. The material features of digital books are conceptualised in terms of their external and internal properties. Based on a theoretical discussion and empirical observations it is argued that specific internal material properties of children’s digital books, namely their interactivity and multimedia, are uniquely positioned to support participatory literacies and are therefore a site of novelty in children’s experiences of narratives

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

Trans- and intra- apps: innovating the app market and use

This book provides an in-depth analysis of the challenges, potential and theoretical possibilities of apps and considers the processes of change for education and home learning environments

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

Promoting democratic classroom communities through storytelling and story acting

We live at a time of unprecedented migration – between rural areas and urban metropolises and between impoverished and war-torn countries and wealthy nations. This migration presents opportunities (e.g. the vitality of new immigrants; the richness when different cultural groups interact) as well as challenges (e.g. disruptions of communities experiencing an influx of migrants). Successful navigation of these challenges will require a new generation of citizens with the abilities and dispositions to listen, take the perspectives of others, and collaborate. It will require people and communities to act with a shared sense of humanity and fairness; to be able to act and solve problems democratically. In this chapter we focus on how children’s sense of democratic responsibility can be promoted through storytelling and story acting