When technology dominates

With all technologies, children need time to learn how to use them. A colleague and I developed the Digital Play Framework as a way to understand how children learn to use still and video cameras, iPads, and computers through play (Bird & Edwards, 2014). What we realised through our research was children needed to explore and practice the skills to use the device before being able to use it in a creative way. The framework lists the observable play behaviours as children move from epistemic play (which includes the explorative play behaviours) to ludic play (the symbolic play behaviours) with the different devices (Hutt, 1971). By providing the knowledge and building their skills around how to use the device. children are then able to use the device for their creative play. For example, if children have not learnt how to take a photo and resize it on the iPad they will not be able to take a photo, make it into a puppet and create their own puppet show in the App known as PuppetPals (Polished Play, LLC, 2014). Part of teaching children how to use technologies is using the correct language. Name the parts of the device and the actions they need to perform. For example, shutter, zoom, home button, swiping, drag and drop and so on. Also explain the functions in language children will understand, for example 'press the record button to tell the camera you want it to start recording and then press it again when you want the camera to stop recording'. Once I started explaining functions in this way, I would hear the children repeating them to their friends, or in some cases their parents!