scholarly journals The best game in the world: Exploring young children’s digital game -related meaning-making via drawing

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pekka Mertala ◽  
Mikko Meriläinen
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Digital Games ◽  
Male Character ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Drawing Task ◽  
The World ◽  
Research Questions

Although digital games have become a constituent part of young children’s lives, not enough is known about the kinds of meanings children give to games and gaming. This qualitative study contributes to resolving this need by engaging 26 five- to seven-year-old Finnish preschoolers in an open-ended drawing task to answer the following research questions: What aspects of digital games appear meaningful for young children when they act as game designers? Why are these aspects meaningful for young children? The findings suggest that children are not mere passive consumers of digital games but are agentic meaning-makers who are capable of critically evaluating digital games when a safe, and supportive space and the appropriate medium are provided. The children refined, modified, and personalized existing influential games by replacing the leading male character with a female one or by having a player operate as the antagonist instead of the hero. The findings suggest that there are vast unexplored dimensions for scholars to engage with in young children’s gaming cultures, children’s perceptions of game content, early game literacy, as well as children’s meaning-making in games. Implications for pedagogy of early childhood education are discussed.

scholarly journals The best game in the world: Exploring young children’s digital game–related meaning-making via design activity

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 275-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pekka Mertala ◽  
Mikko Meriläinen
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Digital Games ◽  
Design Activity ◽  
Male Character ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Drawing Task ◽  
The World ◽  
Research Questions

Although digital games have become a constituent part of young children’s lives, not enough is known about the kinds of meanings children give to games and gaming. This qualitative study contributes to resolving this need by engaging 26 5- to 7-year-old Finnish preschoolers in an open-ended drawing task to answer the following research questions: What aspects of digital games appear meaningful for young children when they act as game designers? Why are these aspects meaningful for young children? The findings suggest that children are not mere passive consumers of digital games but are agentic meaning-makers who are capable of critically evaluating digital games when a safe and supportive space and the appropriate medium are provided. The children refined, modified, and personalized existing influential games by replacing the leading male character with a female one or by having a player operate as the antagonist instead of the hero. The findings suggest that there are vast unexplored dimensions for scholars to engage with in young children’s gaming cultures, children’s perceptions of game content, early game literacy, as well as children’s meaning-making in games. Implications for pedagogy of early childhood education are discussed.

Building Epistemic Awareness in the Early Childhood Classroom

2010 ◽  
pp. 177-216
Author(s):  
Denise L. Winsor ◽  
Sally Blake
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Preschool Education ◽  
Early Childhood Classroom ◽  
Academic Environments ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
New Approaches ◽  
The World ◽  
New Thinking

It is evident from the information in the previous chapters in this book that there is much to be learned about how technology fits into the world of early childhood education (ECE). This chapter discusses some exciting new thinking about epistemology and how children and teachers learn and how this could relate to technology and all learning with young children and their teachers. The new understanding of preschool education potential demands new approaches to these vital years of schooling if we are to prepare our children to succeed in the increasingly demanding academic environments.

Young Children and Narrative Meaning-Making to Promote Arts and Technology

2019 ◽  
pp. 484-504
Author(s):  
Susanne Garvis
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Young Child ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Home School ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
School Environments ◽  
Home Environments ◽  
The World ◽  
Children’S Voices

Around the world, many young children under five years of age engage with arts and technology in their home environments. Engagement with arts and technology becomes a form of sense making and communication for the young child. When children enter early childhood educational settings, the same access to digital technology may not be visible. A divide between home environments and school environments may exist, with different cultural norms. Leven and Arafeh (2002) describe this as digital-disconnect between home-school contexts. This chapter will explore the importance of narrative meaning-making to promote arts and technology communication by young children. Narrative interactions allow children's voices to be at the centre of decisions by the educator regarding arts and technology engagement. By allowing children's voices to be heard around their engagement of arts and technology, we can reflect on reducing the gap between home environments and school environments for learning.

Young Children and Narrative Meaning-Making to Promote Arts and Technology

2015 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Susanne Garvis
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Young Child ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Home School ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
School Environments ◽  
Home Environments ◽  
The World ◽  
Children’S Voices

Around the world, many young children under five years of age engage with arts and technology in their home environments. Engagement with arts and technology becomes a form of sense making and communication for the young child. When children enter early childhood educational settings, the same access to digital technology may not be visible. A divide between home environments and school environments may exist, with different cultural norms. Leven and Arafeh (2002) describe this as digital-disconnect between home-school contexts. This chapter will explore the importance of narrative meaning-making to promote arts and technology communication by young children. Narrative interactions allow children's voices to be at the centre of decisions by the educator regarding arts and technology engagement. By allowing children's voices to be heard around their engagement of arts and technology, we can reflect on reducing the gap between home environments and school environments for learning.

With shadows, dust and mud: Activating weathering-with pedagogies in early childhood education

2020 ◽  
pp. 146394912093920
Author(s):  
Tonya Rooney ◽  
Mindy Blaise ◽  
Felicity Royds
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Environmental Humanities ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The World ◽  
Matters Of Concern

In response to the perception that climate change is too abstract and its consequences too far-reaching for us to make a difference, recent feminist environmental humanities scholars have drawn attention to connections that can be forged by noticing the intermingling of bodies, relations, materials, places and movements in the world. Inspired by these ideas, Tonya Rooney has proposed that there is potential in working with child–weather relations as a pedagogical response to making climate change more connected and immediate for young children. Mindy Blaise and her colleagues have also shown how ‘matters of fact’ dominate early childhood teaching, and call for new pedagogies that attend to ‘matters of concern’, such as climate change. In this article the authors build on these ideas by drawing also on María Puig de la Bellacasa’s suggestion that we extend our concern to ‘matters of care’ as an ‘ethically and politically charged practice’. The authors report on their work with educators and children in an Australian-based preschool where they have started to engage with matters of concern and matters of care to create new types of pedagogies that they call ‘weathering-with pedagogies’. These are situated, experimental, embodied, relational and ethical, and, the authors suggest, reflect a practice of care, thus providing young children with new ways of responding to climate change. The authors take as their starting point Donna Haraway’s invitation to ‘muddy the waters’ as a way to stir up the possibilities, tensions and challenges in doing such work.

scholarly journals Complying and Resisting: A Qualitative Metasynthesis of the Race and Gender Discourses found in the Play of Young Children

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Toni Denese Sturdivant
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Quality Programs ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Early Childhood Classrooms ◽  
And Gender

For many in the field of early childhood education, the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) is considered to be the source for information on high-quality approaches. Currently, NAEYC (2005) states that high-quality programs are programs that include diversity within the physical environment of the room and considers the cultural backgrounds of the students in the class.This acknowledgment of there being bias in our society sheds light on the responsibility early childhood educators have regarding teaching children about biases in order to prevent the continued growth of systematic inequalities. The purpose of this qualitative metasynthesis is to synthesize the findings of various high-quality studies dealing with issues of race and gender and the play of young children as a way to understand better what messages young children are exposed to, are accepting and rejecting. The two research questions that guided the study are (a) How is intertextuality used in the discourse of young children in extant studies involving issues of hegemony in early childhood classrooms? (b) What societal discourses are present in the speech and actions of young children in extant studies involving hegemony in early childhood classrooms?  Findings show that young children in extant research confirmed hegemonic messages more than any of the other intertextual responses. 

scholarly journals From the Editors’ Desk

2015 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 3
Author(s):  
Veronica Pacini-­‐Ketchabaw ◽  
Affrica Taylor ◽  
Mindy Blaise ◽  
Sandrina De Finney
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Young Children ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Environmental Humanities ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
The World ◽  
Ways Of Being

<p>Learning How to Inherit in Colonized and Ecologically Challenged LifeWorlds in Early Childhood Education: An Introduction</p><p>The complex and intensifying ecological challenges of the 21st century call for new ways of thinking, being, and doing in all sectors of our society, including early childhood education, and the Aboriginal environmental humanities offer alternative ways of being present and acting in the world. Accordingly, in September 2014 we gathered for three days in Victoria, British Columbia, with leading Indigenous and environmental humanities scholars and a group of 40 early childhood scholars, educators, and students to mobilize these perspectives in the early education of young children. This special issue presents eight articles inspired by the conversations that took place at the “Learning How to Inherit in Colonized and Ecologically Challenged Life Worlds” symposium.1</p>

scholarly journals Bermain dan Belajar pada Anak Usia Dini

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (01) ◽  
pp. 161-179
Author(s):  
Fitri Wahyuni ◽  
Suci Midsyahri Azizah
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Learning Activity ◽  
Early Age ◽  
Initial Capital ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Study Results ◽  
The World ◽  
Early Childhood Learning

Early childhood has a unique way of learning something that is undoubtedly different from adults. A child does not understand that what he does while playing is an activity that might be considered a learning activity for parents. Playing while learning is an activity carried out by a child at an early age that is carried out with feelings of pleasure, without coercion, but has patterns that we expect to create results for proper development for the child. Playing is also a means for children to channel their considerable energy and discover new things that they did not know in a fun way before. Furthermore, it is indeed different from learning understood by adults with all the rules and demands in the end. Playing (while learning) in early childhood has goals that may not be realized by some; whenever playing, a child is developing the potential contained in self to become a robust initial capital for the future when facing problems in life. This paper tries to provide model and knowledge to parents to understand the world of early childhood, one of which is by understanding the nature and the meaning of playing for early childhood. Obtained by exploring various sources of literature, parents and early childhood education (PAUD) teachers may use the study results to be more precise in assisting and designing learning for young children. Keywords: Early childhood, Learning, Playing   Anak usia dini memiliki cara unik dalam mempelajari sesuatu yang berbeda dari orang dewasa. Seorang anak tidak mengerti bahwa apa yang dia lakukan saat bermain adalah kegiatan yang dapat dianggap sebagai kegiatan belajar bagi orang tua. Bermain sambil belajar adalah kegiatan yang dilakukan oleh seorang anak di usia dini yang dilakukan dengan perasaan senang, tanpa paksaan, tetapi memiliki pola yang diarapkan akan menciptakan hasil untuk perkembangan yang tepat bagi anak. Bermain juga merupakan sarana bagi anak-anak untuk menyalurkan energi mereka yang cukup besar dan menemukan hal-hal baru yang tidak mereka ketahui sebelumnya dengan cara yang menyenangkan. Lebih jauh lagi, bermain sambil belajar berbeda dari pembelajaran yang dipahami oleh orang dewasa dengan semua aturan dan tuntutan di akhir. Bermain (sambil belajar) pada anak usia dini memiliki tujuan yang mungkin tidak disadari oleh sebagian orang; setiap kali bermain, seorang anak mengembangkan potensi yang terkandung dalam diri untuk menjadi modal awal yang kuat untuk masa depan ketika menghadapi masalah dalam hidup. Tulisan ini mencoba memberikan model dan pengetahuan kepada orang tua untuk memahami dunia anak usia dini, salah satunya adalah dengan memahami sifat dan makna bermain untuk anak usia dini. Diperoleh dengan mengeksplorasi berbagai sumber literatur, orang tua, dan guru pendidikan anak usia dini (PAUD) dapat menggunakan hasil penelitian ini untuk lebih tepat dalam membantu dan merancang pembelajaran untuk anak-anak. Kata kunci: Bermain, Belajar, Anak usia dini

It’s About Time! Advancing Justice Through Joyful Inquiry With Young Children

2021 ◽  
pp. 027112142098889
Author(s):  
Elizabeth J. Erwin ◽  
Jessica K. Bacon ◽  
Priya Lalvani
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Present Moment ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Young Learners ◽  
Disability Narratives ◽  
Disability Studies In Education ◽  
The World ◽  
Sense Of Justice

Young learners often are enchanted with the world, fascinated by the ordinary, and absorbed in the present moment. We explore interconnected ideas about how young children’s natural proclivity toward being curious, and noticing differences among people should be harnessed toward socially just ends. We consider ways in which joyfulness in learning are preserved, as teachers partner with young learners to cultivate their sense of justice in the classroom and beyond. We use disability studies in education as a theoretical framework for doing anti-bias work within early childhood education. We also describe global and neoliberal trends which directly and negatively impact the lives of young children by escalating injustice through educational practices and policies often disguised as reform. Ultimately, we propose, reimagining equity-based practices, positive disability narratives, freedom and humanity, and the concept of place within pedagogy to transform early childhood education.

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