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This Australian study examines whether and how technologies such as Artificially Intelligent (AI) toys in a home-based setting might socially and emotionally support children with diverse needs through play. Building on the concept of ‘emotional capital', and employing a design-based research approach, parents during the COVID-19 lockdown periods in 2020 intentionally used robotic toys to engage their children with additional diverse needs in home-based play experiences. The data from both parents’ and children’s ( n = 5) Zoom interviews, digital observations and children’s drawings demonstrated how children creatively conversed with their AI robots in innovative and empathy-based dialogues that generated happy feelings and a sense of ‘imaginary’ togetherness with their robot during the coding experiences. This study contributes to research by exploring the use of AI robotic toys together with physical and artificial environments and offers a case to build children’s emotional capital in enabling children’s social-emotional literacies.

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in the European Early Childhood Education Research Journal on 20 March 2020, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1350293X.2020.1735739. In the last decade, in particular, understanding technology use within children’s play-based experiences has been an important concern for early childhood education researchers and practitioners (Danby et al. 2018; Stephen and Edwards 2018). The World Economic Forum (2019) has highlighted the pressing issue of the twenty-first-century skills gap related to the digital revolution and ways that educators and researchers around the globe can address it through technology. The critical components of the twenty-first-century skill framework, which includes collaboration, communication, critical thinking and problem-solving, capitalise on teachers’ appropriate use of technology and holds enormous promise to help foster these critical skills in young children.

The aim of this article is to investigate ways that young children interact with touchscreen devices during museum visits and during the process of making a digital story in their kindergarten classrooms related to these visits. Drawing on children’s communicative embodied museum experiences and the notion of wayfaring and lines of movement, I discuss that digital stories become children’s visual lines of movement in time and place, and that through the process of making a digital story, children become digital wayfarers. Data include pictures, videos, children’s drawings and their digital story. In particular, I argue that this way back to the museum can be seen as children’s visual and digital ways of connecting with, interacting with and inhabiting the museum. This article gives insights on children as creative meaning makers, by looking at children’s perspectives and by exploring children’s visual lines of movement through their digital story.

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in the European Early Childhood Education Research Journal on 11 March 2020, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1350293X.2020.1735744. This paper will discuss the beliefs and experiences of early childhood educators across three countries, England, Norway and Greece, in relation to the use of touchscreen technology with the youngest children in their settings. Building on previous research which explored parents’ perspectives, this study now extends the investigation to early childhood educators who play a key role in children’s learning and development. A detailed online survey was implemented across the three countries based on Bronfenbrenner’s ecological framework and with a focus on their teaching philosophy. Findings indicate that although there are some pertinent cultural differences, overall educators are generally confident when using technology for work/personal purposes but less so when integrating technology with very young children. Educators across all countries were not satisfied with their training. The country of origin had a significant impact on teachers’ philosophy and their views towards technology, with Norwegian educators reporting the most positive views towards using touchscreen technologies in educational settings with very young children. Macrosystemic factors in each country could be explored in future research to contribute to a deeper interpretation of similarities and differences between countries and cultural contexts.

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in the European Early Childhood Education Research Journal on 3 March 2020, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1350293X.2020.1735738. This paper presents findings from an on-going international study of early childhood educators’ and children’s use of new digital technologies, such as the Internet of Toys (IoToys) and the pedagogic interactions which occur when these artefacts are integrated into classrooms. Based on qualitative methodology, data have been collected in four countries: Australia, Norway, Scotland and England. Data collection includes observations of interactions with IoToys (written and video), multimedia messages (digital images, videos), short written reflections and consultations with the children. Findings across all countries show that IoToys offers a platform for interactions to become multidirectional, multidimensional and multimodal. Examining the interactions in the ecology of the playroom, this study calls for pedagogy involving IoToys to provide a platform for children’s rich symbiotic explorations, creativity, collaboration and problem solving