Narrative in young children's digital art-making

Abstract

Digital technologies have material and social properties that have the potential to create new opportunities for children's expressive arts practices. The presence and development of oral narratives in young children's visual art-making on paper has been noted in previous research, but little is known about the narratives children create when they engage in digital art-making. How do young children construct narratives during digital art-making? How do the features of these narratives relate to the social and material properties of the digital resources they are using? How can looking at these narratives inform and enrich our understanding of children's art-making in general? Drawing on a social semiotic perspective, these questions are explored through an in-depth analysis of narrative in three examples of four- to five-year-olds' digital art-making. On the basis of the analysis, features of oral narrative in young children's digital art-making are suggested and these are linked to the potentially influential properties of digital resources. Being aware of these features and properties offers a starting point for thinking about what digital resources can offer in the context of young children's art-making. The findings also prompt us to be aware of the diverse potentials that exist in children's art-making practices regardless of the resources being used.

“We Need Sound Too!” Children and Teachers CreatingMultimodal Digital Stories Together

“…In the previous research, three types of multimodal digital stories created by young children (age 0-8) in collaboration with teachers or researchers in ECEC are found. The first type is digital stories made of pictures and text, for example, children's drawings or paintings (Letnes, 2014), ready-made images from software or the Internet (Sakr et al, 2016;Skantz Åberg et al, 2015;Wohlwend, 2017), or children's photographs (Letnes, 2014). The second type is stop-motion animation movies -for example, using twodimensional drawings (Leinonen & Sintonen, 2014), three-dimensional play materials, or homemade figures (Fleer, 2018;Letnes, 2014;Palaiologou & Tsampra, 2018;Petersen, 2015).…”

“…Digital technology introduces new opportunities to the process of creating multimodal digital stories, and can contribute by serving as a resource (Letnes, 2014). The technology makes it easy to modify products during the creation process, for example by changing or deleting elements (Fleer, 2018;Sakr et al, 2016). Digital technology also provides opportunities for adding sound, for example, voice-overs (Fleer, 2018) and creating special effects, for example, flying in a homemade spaceship (Hesterman, 2011).…”

From foot to pencil, from pencil to finger: Children as digital wayfarers

“…Art expressions (e.g. through their drawings) that are connected with their narratives expresses a personal involvement and a personal representation (Sakr et al, 2016). For the two children in this study, museum became a place through a sense of sharing with others.…”

Digital technology use by and with young children: A systematic review for the Statement on Young Children and Digital Technologies

“…a monster eating fish). Sakr et al (2016) argued that access to 'ready-made' artwork in digital media production supports children's 'communication, representation and expressions' (p. 305). This challenges the conventional notion that children's art facilitates representations of their experiences.…”

“…Children had access to digital cameras, a computer and the animations. Like Sakr et al (2016), the media provided 'an inspiration for children' and were used as a 'starting point for their own story creation and production' (p. 222). Observations showed children's interest, enjoyment and commitment to producing media and highlighted their 'competence interpreting and producing media' (p. 232).…”