The ebook version of this title is Open Access, thanks to Knowledge Unlatched funding, and is freely available to read online. This book presents how sets of tablet play characteristics shape children's current digital playgrounds.

The ebook version of this title is Open Access, thanks to Knowledge Unlatched funding, and is freely available to read online. This book presents how sets of tablet play characteristics shape children's current digital playgrounds.

This volume focuses on very young children’s (aged 0-8) rights in a digital world. It gathers current research from around the globe that focuses on young children’s rights as agental citizens to the provision of and participation in digital devices and content—as well as their right to protection from harm. The UN Digital Rights Framework of 2014 addresses children’s needs, agency and vulnerability to harm in today’s digital world and implies roles and responsibilities for a variety of social actors including the state, families, schools, commercial entities, researchers and children themselves. This volume presents a broad range of research, including chapters on parental supervision and control, the changing forms of play, early childhood education, media and cultural studies, law, design, health, special-needs education, and engineering. Implicit within this book is the acknowledgement that children of various ages, abilities, socioeconomic and geographic backgrounds should have equal access to, and positive / non-harmful experiences with, new digital technologies and content—as well as adult support and expertise that enhances these experiences. This passionate book celebrates the diversity of young children’s activities in the digital world. It interrogates these through four intersecting lenses: their rights, play experiences, contextualised design, and best practice. Balancing children’s eager engagement with digital content alongside adult responsibilities for education, privacy and protection, the volume provides a fitting showcase for work of global relevance. Professor Lelia Green Professor of Communications Edith Cowan University Perth, Western Australia This compelling text provides a critical resource to inform our understanding of the intersection of the digital world and children’s rights. Ilene R. Berson, Ph.D. Professor of Early Childhood Education Affiliate Faculty, Learning Design & Technology Area Coordinator, Early Childhood Coordinator, Early Childhood Ph.D. Program University of South Florida College of Education A truly international collection that investigates young children’s engagement with digital technologies. Identifying issues of public interest around digital practices, this highly readable book is a valuable resource for researchers, parents and policy makers. Professor Susan Danby Director, ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child and, Faculty of Education School of Early Childhood and Inclusive Education QUT Kelvin Grove, Queensland

As the internet and new online technologies are becoming embedded in everyday life, there are increasing questions about their social implications and consequences. This text addresses these risks in relation to children.

"In the decades it takes to bring up a child, parents face challenges that are both helped and hindered by the fact that they are living through a period of unprecedented digital innovation. Drawing on extensive research with diverse parents, this book reveals how digital technologies give personal and political parenting struggles a distinctive character, as parents determine how to forge new territory with little precedent, or support. The book reveals the pincer movement of parenting in late modernity. Parents are both more burdened with responsibilities and charged with respecting the agency of their child-leaving much to negotiate in today's "democratic" families. The book charts how parents now often enact authority and values through digital technologies-as "screen time," games, or social media become ways of both being together and setting boundaries. The authors show how digital technologies introduce both valued opportunities and new sources of risk. To light their way, parents comb through the hazy memories of their own childhoods and look toward varied imagined futures. This results in deeply diverse parenting in the present, as parents move between embracing, resisting, or balancing the role of technology in their own and their children's lives. This book moves beyond the panicky headlines to offer a deeply researched exploration of what it means to parent in a period of significant social and technological change. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative research in the United Kingdom, the book offers conclusions and insights relevant to parents, policymakers, educators, and researchers everywhere"--

Young children are born into a digital world and it is not unusual to see preschool children intuitively swiping screens and confidently pressing buttons. There is much debate about the impact of the increased access to technology on young children’s health and wellbeing with claims that it damages their social skills and emotional development. This timely new textbook examines how developments in technology, particularly mobile and touch screen technology, have impacted on children’s lives and how when used appropriately it can support all aspects of their development. Clearly linking theory and research to everyday practice, the book offers guidance on: The role of technology in the early years curriculum Developing young children’s understanding of safe and responsible use of technology The role of the adult within digital play activities Using technology to enhance and develop young children’s creativity Technology and language acquisition Featuring a wide range of case studies and examples to show how the ideas described can be put into practice, this is essential reading for all early years students and practitioners that want to know how they can harness technology in a meaningful way to support young children’s learning and development.

Technologies are a pervasive feature of contemporary life for adults and children. However, young children’s experiences with digital technologies are often the subject of polarised debate among parents, educators, policymakers and social commentators, particularly since the advent of tablets and smartphones changed access to the Internet and the nature of interactions with digital resources. Some are opposed to children’s engagement with digital resources, concerned that the activities they afford are not developmentally appropriate, limit physical activity and restrict the development of social skills. Others welcome digital technologies which they see as offering new and enhanced ways of learning and sharing knowledge. Despite this level of popular and policy interest in young children’s interactions with digital technologies our understanding of the influence of these technologies on playing and learning, and on the role of educators, has remained surprisingly limited. The contributions to this book fill in the gaps of our existing understanding of the field. They focus on children and families from Australia to England to Estonia, the how and why of encounters with digital technologies, the nature of digital play and questions about practice and practitioners. The book raises critical questions and offers new understandings and theoretical insights around one of the ‘hot topics’ in early years research. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Early Years journal.