Digital Pedagogy: How Teachers Support Digital Play in the Early Years

Children are increasingly embedded in environments where digital technologies create new conditions for learning and development (McKenney and Voogt, 2010). We now a lot about children's experiences (e.g Sackes et al., 2011) and teacher perspectives (e.g. Hinostroza et al., 2013) where new approaches for supporting children's engagement with digital devices have emerged (see Wohlwnd, 2015). This growing body of research gives a foundation for knowing about how digital devices are used by teachers and by children. However, less is known about the type of pedagogy that is need to support children's play and learning with digital devices in the early years. In drawing upon a cultural-historical conceptualization of research (Vygotsky, 1997), this chapter seeks to:

Introduce the concept of digital pedagogy
Present three case studies which show the relations between teacher pedagogy
and children's engagement with digital technology.
Highlight children's perspectives when children make slowmation animations.

The chapter begins with a brief discussion of the literature to give a backdrop for discussing digital pedagogy. This is followed by three case studies that present the stories of children and teachers engaged with digital technologies. Fairytales are used in each context to frame the digital experiences of the children. At the conclusion to each case study there is a discussion on the special nature of the pedagogy that was used by the teachers; and finally, an analysis of the children's perspective is featured in relation to the digital pedagogy used by each o the teachers.