I have been researching the use of ebooks, digital media, mobile devices and the development of transliteracy skills in the design of high-quality language and literacy-rich environments for over a decade. One thing I have started to notice recently is that many of digital reading platforms I have looked at in the past are offering free subscriptions for the remainder of the school year. This is an awesome opportunity for teachers to expand their classroom libraries to include digital formats!
Currently, all of these platforms are offering free digital resources for the remainder of the school year.
If you take a walk through your local Best Buy or Home Depot, after just a few minutes browsing you will notice a variety of smart devices available to consumers at a relatively low cost. For example, a 32-inch Smart HDTV can be purchased for around $150. These smart devices are enabled with Wi-Fi access and many of them preloaded with a variety of streaming media applications that consumers can log into and begin viewing upon unpacking the device. Not even appliances are immune to the smart device revolution. Many refrigerators are being built with touchscreens on the doors and with network connectivity. Soon, we may be watching “television” from our refrigerator while we are preparing dinner.
As a result of the smart device revolution, today’s youth have left live television behind. Media consumption has shifted from television to digital streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and others. Children are consuming media via device, whether it is music via Spotify, Pandora, Soundcloud, Tidal and others or video via the iTunes Store, WatchESPN, Netflix or Amazon Prime. As such, digital reading platforms have begun to emerge to take advantage of the connected child. Tech-savvy parents and teachers can provide children and students with anytime-anyplace access to thousands of age-appropriate titles, which in the near future, could be accessed by toddlers from a touch-screen on the refrigerator door.
What does this mean in the world of the young child? What does it mean for children that are learning to read and interact with a variety of forms of literacy materials? Gone are the days of sitting your child on the kitchen floor with building blocks or storybook. Instead, they are plugged into the matrix and have connections to any number of streaming media platforms. How will children interact with literacy in the environment of the smart home? What does this mean for teaching kids the alphabet or their numbers? How does this impact the way that we can teach kids how to read, write, communicate and be literate in this streaming world? Do we need to have different expectations for what it means to be literate in our world today? Are expected expectations for student achievement relevant and attainable in this new age that we’re living in? Questions such as these must be considered to ensure that teachers are educating youth for the world they will live in tomorrow.
The outcome of this conference was to build a better understanding of the state of the evidence and a develop a new section of the Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development that will be useful for families, professionals and policy makers.
The Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development is produced by the Centre of Excellence for Early Childhood Development (CEECD) and the Strategic Knowledge Cluster on Early Child Development (SKC-ECD). Respectively based at the Université de Montréal and Université Laval (Quebec, Canada), these two organizations have built over the years a solid network of international experts who gather, synthesize and comment, in their respective domain of expertise, the most up-to-date scientific knowledge available on the development of young children, from conception to age five.
Recently, the Technology in early childhood education section of the Encyclopedia was published. Dr. Roskos and I contributed a piece titled Teaching Early Literacy with E-books: Emerging Practices. I hope it helps shed some light around what we know and what we don’t know about teaching with ebooks.
What makes a good, workable, instructive, enjoyable ebook for young children? Certainly the established criteria of quality children’s literature apply to ebook texts. Strong features of good storybooks over the ages are similarly the features of enduring ebooks into the future: age-appropriate material that interests children, strong plots, and rich characterizations of the human condition are most likely the types of features we’d hope to find in a high-quality ebook. In this way, ebooks are very much like traditional books, and their literary or informational content can be judged by the same general criteria.
However, the addition of electronics impacts reading in new ways. An ebook, for example, can have background music whereas a traditional book cannot. Ebooks can provide mini-tutorials in hotspots, hyperlinks and virtual assistants who instruct and explain on-the-spot, in essence, ‘teaching’ children early literacy skills, such as phonological awareness and vocabulary. Read the rest of this entry…
During the development of a literate society, literacy practices were very linear in nature. Consider a traditional piece of literature, like a book. It has a cover with the title and author. When we address these elements, we begin by decoding letters and words starting in the upper left and moving to the right across the first line to develop meaning and comprehend printed text. We then open the book, turn the page and then again begin to read for meaning making starting in the upper left, moving across to the right and then down to the next line. This repetitive process reflects the literacy practices most of us have participated in since birth.Read the rest of this entry…
In their most basic form, children’s ebooks are computer files that act much like a book. They have traditional conventions like a title, pages, and chapters. However, they also can contain illustrations and hotspots that provide a navigation mechanism for the reader. A deeper look at children’s ebooks reveals a more complex form, a type of software that includes animations, sounds, videos, and a read-aloud function. Read the rest of this entry…
Literacy is no longer confined to a standard print format. There is an increasing integration and adoption of digital texts and ebooks in school libraries and classrooms across the United States. Compared to their print counterparts, ebooks are portable, facilitating the easy transport of sizable libraries with little physical effort. The mobility of ebooks allows them to be used in any place at any time via handheld or mobile devices.
Ebooks for young children are like storybooks we know and love in some ways. While features of ebooks mirror those we see in traditional children’s literature, ebooks add new, digital features. These digital additions to print are different in a manner that is profoundly changing the storybook as a piece of early literacy learning. As a result, ebooks can be used to develop transliterate practices in the classroom that address academic and cognitive diversity in learners.Read the rest of this entry…
Sprouts and STEM: Growing What We Know About Early Childhood Education and Technology
Digital tools are playing an increasingly important role in classroom learning. In order to design high-quality learning experiences for our youngest students, early childhood educators must be informed and judicious in the manner in which they integrate these technologies. Join Jeremy Brueck as he explores appropriate and innovative ways to integrate technology into classrooms in support of young children’s learning. Drawn on his own research, child development theory, and developmentally appropriate practice as a foundation, Brueck will demonstrate how digital tools can enhance early learning, support teaching goals, and improve teaching practice. Brueck will discuss the role of digital tools in:
Creating engaging and educational experiences for young children that balance with other hands-on learning experiences
Helping educators with management, organization, and professional learning
