A diversity of digital smartness: A case study of children's uses of information and communication technology in an early childhood education setting

Abstract

Information and Communication Technology is regarded as playing an ever-increasing role in the lives of people, which includes young children. The role of ICT in early childhood educational services in Aotearoa New Zealand is still being argued by teachers despite policy expectations that endorse and support its integration into practice. This chapter draws upon a small qualitative case study involving young children and their uses of ICT in one early childhood setting. It identifies and examines the diversity of ways that children, and other people involved in their lives, might use ICT as a means of initiating, facilitating and supporting learning. We define this as digital smartness. A socio-cultural perspective is used to recognise and examine this notion of children’s digital smartness. ICT and learning is examined in terms of the social and cultural contexts of the young children with particular focus on the influences of family/whānau and the early childhood education setting. We examine how the digital smartness of children can be understood and affirmed in early childhood settings. We identify the Bourdieuian construct of habitus as a valid perspective to informing and meeting obligations of a more coherent teacher pedagogy of ICT. We contend that certain factors need to be in place to welcome the diversity of children’s digital habitus into early childhood education settings that affirm the digital smartness of children learning and living in the 21st century.