Professional ecologies shaping technology adoption in early childhood education with multilingual children

Abstract

Strategic deployment of the digital world in educational ecosystems inhabited by multilingual children (4–6 years old), their teachers and their families is evolving in some communities. This study reveals the “actors” and communities that mediate the extent and the nature of engagement with new media in contexts of early childhood education, including evidence of partnership with teachers. Teachers and parents were found to be the “keystone species,” with the teacher the most influential mediator for young multilingual children. Empirical research into the interacting learning ecologies of young children in six early childhood centres and five associated schools is based on interviews with teachers and families plus photographs of the linguistic landscapes in these physical and digital ecosystems. Fragmented multiple perspectives on the education of young children and technology adoption are brought together with Davis’ Arena Framework of change with digital technologies in education. One early childhood education centre is mapped in a global arena to expose the co‐evolution of education with technology that occurs in all levels, local through global. This clarifies the need for co‐construction of policy and practice in these ecosystems so that that emergent bilinguals can have a better start in the digital world.

Facilitating innovation with technology: Key actors in educational ecosystems

“…Bond’s study warns against optimism in this respect: observing that family engagement will not be cultivated by any such simple mediation of technology. Davis, Harris and Cunningham () also considers parents and offers a more fully articulated ecological analysis of educational practice, drawing upon the example of language learning. Here, there is a useful effort to integrate the material and digital environments: one which demonstrates how a hesitant adoption of technology may be understood in terms of the dynamics that arise within them.…”

“…An ecological perspective involves awareness of the rich variety of settings within which educational practice takes place: accordingly, research will need to confront this variety, to capture and express it. For example, from the corpus of research reported in this Special Issue, there is clearly a significant gulf between “a Chinese middle‐high boarding school” (Sun & Gao, ) and a primary school in a culturally diverse area of New Zealand (Davis et al , ). Yet we should retain faith in the central place of the findings from such case studies.…”

Connections and disconnections between home and kindergarten: A case study of a 4‐year old child's digital practices and experiences in early childhood

“…Although the digital disconnect between home and school exists, it is more important to understand why some technologies are used at home or in early years settings and how that choice is mediated by the different socio‐ecological settings (Edwards et al., 2017). Looking at the views of the responsible adult/s in both settings is important since teachers and parents are the keystone species setting up mediation of the digital world to benefit and protect young children (Davis et al., 2019).…”

What is an ecological approach and how can it assist in understanding ICT take‐up?

“…For example, in her ecological approach, Davis () offered a model for the take‐up of ICT in which the classroom was nested within a school, district, state, national and global ecology. This was further developed in an “arena framework” (Davis et al ., ) which used a more ecological science vocabulary: teachers work in eco systems , blends of physical and digital worlds; species are introduced to systems; the teacher is the keystone species in the educational system (the one with proportionally the largest effect, albeit highly influenced by organisational culture). A similar ecological metaphor appears in Zhao et al () in which technology itself is a “species” introduced into school.…”

“…This paper argues for an ecological perspective when researching the take‐up of ICT in schools. There has been increasing interest in ecological approaches and ecological metaphors in considering teacher adoption of ICT (eg, Davis, Harris, & Cunningham, ; Johnson & Puplampu, ; Kozma, ; Law, Kampylis, & Punie, ; Nardi & O’Day, ; Slaouti & Barton, ; Zhao, Lei, & Frank, ), but on‐going tensions persist in the way an ecological approach is understood. The aim of this paper is to clarify what an ecological approach consists of and to show how such an approach can help to explain levels of ICT take‐up.…”