Findings from the children of the new millennium project

1 Susan Hill Children of the new millennium

Hot diggity!

Findings from the Children of the new millennium project

Susan Hill

Paper presented at Early Childhood Organisation Conference EDC March 6 2004

This paper is based on the teacher researcher reports by Anita Hudd, Eileen Love, Jenny Chartier, Katie Deverell and Vizma Betts, Annette Boulden, Ellen Sykaras,

Trish Pratt, Lyn Norris, Colleen de Ceukelaire, Kerry Hardacre, Kerri Kelsh, Denise Watson, Pam Edwards, Kay Mathie, Keryn Moyle, Amy Gill, Thomas Harvey,

Laura Hapek, Sharon Arney Thanks to Sarah Rose and Heather Lawes.

© Susan Hill 2004


Hot diggity New learning: Findings from the children of the new

millennium project One morning when I was reading the teacher research reports about the Children Of The New Millennium Project I felt the hairs rise up on the back of my neck. Anita Hudd a reception teacher at Ingle Farm East Primary School wrote three comments that made a huge impression on me. First she writes about visiting the home of Levi and Mason, 5 year old identical twins who had easy access to a computer, scanner, printer and a collection of CD’s:

Initially the boys used ICT mainly for recreational purposes but they now use the computer for ‘home work’ quite regularly e.g. typing sight words, short stories, exploring educational sites (mum came in to find out if I could recommend any suitable sites the boys could access during the Oct. school holidays) At school they both enjoy the creative opportunities when engaged in open ended tasks or ‘free time’ to explore tools and their possibilities. They are especially pleased with the ‘graphics’ they can create on the computer as they are products of a higher quality than anything they are able to produce themselves as five year olds using e.g. pencils/paper.

Many teachers like Anita were ‘blown away’ by young children’s use of ICT in the ‘technotour’ they undertook to children’s homes. Of the 91 children in the first year of the project, 66 had access to computers at home and of these, 13 children had 2 or 3 computers. In the second phase of the project, of the 40 children, 24 had access to computers at home, but many others had access to computers elsewhere – at grandmas for instance. The four to eight year old children could operate CD Roms, scanners, DVDs, video to listen to music and watch movies. Teachers commented that ICT are embedded in young children’s lives and they feel comfortable, stimulated and respond in positive ways to ICT.

The second example from Anita is about 5 year old Mollie using Kidpix3 to make a slide show.

Molly confidently opened the program Kidpix3.


Clicked on go. Activated the sticker tool, and clicked the tool option arrow at the bottom of the screen. The option was ‘sea life’. She scrolled through the ‘sea life’ selections numerous times, only to be presented with the same stickers yet again! Teacher: What are you looking for? Molly: A horse! T: Under which category would you find that? M: In farm She immediately started clicking the up arrow to locate farm. T: Do you know the short cut, the quick way of finding the category? M: No. I showed her how to click on the category, drag the cursor up and stop on the appropriate category. She had a turn and promptly replied M: I know how to do that! Meaning that she’d observed some one else use this function before. T: How did you know this? Did you discover it? M: Darci showed me! The highlighted section she had stopped at was indeed Farm. She immediately dragged up a horse. Moved it to the centre and slightly enlarged it. She then clicked on Fill buckets.

Mollie’s ease and enthusiastic learning about new literacies also incorporate print based literacies. Some of the print based and new literacies literacies included:

knowledge of the alphabet sounds and letters switching from capital letter to lower case directionality left to right creating a book/slide show from left to right sequencing of pages matching text to illustrations developing phonological awareness connecting sounds and letters in writing

her own text oral language skills, explaining, reporting, questioning new computer vocabulary decodes text when opening folders awareness of lettering and layout and adjusting fonts when adding text in text

boxes.

The third example is in the conclusion of her report when Anita writes about learning from her colleague.

The support from Eileen (teaching colleague who involved me with this project) in terms of role modelling the use of ICT and sharing practical ideas in how to integrate the use of computers and associated technologies across the curriculum has been invaluable. Her computing ideas, energy level, willingness to discuss and support me in both planning for my learners and giving technical advice when major problems occurred have helped develop my own skills. This has been a huge learning curve for me


Anita had recently returned to the classroom after a 14 year break in other teaching roles such as Languages Other than English. These three examples highlight the findings from the project Children of the New Millennium. They highlight; the importance of new literacies; how new learning is used; why is this new learning so engaging; and what teachers are learning about young children and ICT.

What are new literacies? New literacies are multimodal - visual, auditory and they move fast. Computers are ‘symbol machines’ (Labbo, in press) that allow children to negotiate a complex interplay of multiple sign systems (e.g., video clips, music, sound effects, icons, virtually rendered paint strokes, text in print-based documents), multiple modalities (e.g., linguistic, auditory, visual, artistic), and recursive communicative and cognitive processes (e.g., real time and virtual conversations, cutting/pasting text, manipulating graphics, importing photographs). Children can take digital photographs about their learning and they can play with these photographs importing them into slide shows, changing the layout, the colours, and the shape. They can make books with photographs and their own art work using a myriad of colours, backgrounds and this can have sound and animation added to it. To understand the symbol machine we need to use a semiotic framework to see how symbols which can be letters and words, drawings, icons of various types, photographs, colours and animation movement communicate meanings (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2001; Lemke, 1998; McKenna, 1998). Semiotics offers a wide lens to describe how meanings are made and goals accomplished using ‘semiotic resources’ such as oral language, visual symbols and music. It is not a question of print based (Clay, 1993) versus electronic literacies, but new literacies, which incorporate both. Multiple sign systems and multiple

modalities require a semiotic theory of meaning making

Print based

Figure 1: Electronic literacies


New literacies engage children in design, layout, colour, animation, sound and timing of images. They involve choices and decision making about what kinds of communication works best and where.

For example Brett in kindergarten at Seacliffe created for his friends, a series of scenes using Kidpix. He could use a menu and various graphic functions to create a picture and also operate a slide show

Six year old children at

y

ileen their teacher writes: he desktop through to the email screen students were

email they critically interpreted written text containing

s they typed in correctly spelt responses eg yes/ no and in writing their names.

Ingle Farm East used new literacies when thecommunicated with email

E In the navigation from t

code breakers with electronic information incorporating visual, written, symbols and icons. In responding to thefamiliar and new content. In responding to the email


They located icons on the screen and responding to written and visual text simultaneously eg reply and reply all buttons.

y too can ask questions through

desired response.

g Thomas “I’m going to the big E [Internet Explorer icon].

the top”

Eileen found that young students were confident about navigating up to a 6 step equence. They were excited about being in the adult world of email. They were no

gh information on the screen. They ecome competent scanners as they search for information on the screen in a non

hat is this new learning? The new learning was a process that was inquiry based, child initiated, engaging and

ing came from questions, puzzles or the interest

d learning nny Chartier writes:

based on essential questions. An example of an essential doing enough to support endangered animals?” The teachers

aura at Elizabeth Vale Primary School wrote about their curriculum hich is based on students making decisions about what they want or need to learn

They understood the purpose of the text (email message) by recognising that the questions need to be answered and that theemail. They were aware of order and sequence through successful navigation to eg inbox.

Recognised that information entered into the computer needs to be accurate to get the

Knew how numbers work in trying to locate the latest email in ascending and descending order.

They could produce a range of spoken text to communicate their ideas to a familiar audience eThen you click your mail and get your login”. Used strategies to locate information or a particular icon. eg recall of position on the screen

o “It’s about in the middle” o “Go too “Other side”.

slonger tied to the traditional rules of code breaking. They find animations and visual literacies engaging and want to investigate more. Students are able to effectively sift and sort throublinear style with increasing speed and accuracy. They acknowledge the computer as a powerful tool to support them in their thinking and learning.

W

collaborative. In the projects the learnof children. Inquiry baseJeLearning at our school isquestion is “Is the zoo culled through resources to find information about animals at the zoo that were endangered. Thomas and Lwand how they will learn it. Lyn Norris at Little Hampton used questions raised by the children as a starting point for topics of work.


Child initiated hild initiated new learning occurred in the preschool with four year

searching for creatures in the outdoor environment. Here he is

An example of colds. Kerry writes:

Kaylen enjoyslooking for caterpillars. He noticed some leaves that had holes in them and told me that the caterpillars had been eating them. Excitedly he kept looking through the bushes and under leaves and sure enough found “A big fat caterpillar”. “Look, look, here it is.”

aylen pulled the caterpillar from the leaf and put it into a container. “ Look at

larrie (another boy) was interested in researching information on the internet.

Kthis caterpillar I found” He said proudly to his peers “You can touch it if you want, but be careful, you might hurt it.” CKaylen followed armed with his caterpillar and magnifying glass. Kaylen watched and listened as Clarrie spoke with Kerry about how to access information on the internet, where the cords need to be connected, how we need to log in and dial up.

Wow neat” Kaylen exclaimed as the computer made the dialing up sounds.” ws

aylen sang in unison. ng up on the screen. Once the

arrie?”

Kerry: “What word do you think we could type in to the computer so it knowhat we are looking for?” “Caterpillars” Clarrie and KThey watched intently as information started comipictures downloaded squeals of delight sounded from Kaylen “OH WOW” “Look there are lots of caterpillars.” Kerry: “Do you see any like yours Cl


C: “Not yet, Oh there’s one.” Kaylen: “Oh yeah, that’s like my furry one, see. Can I do it now?”

nd Kaylen was away, able to use search engines and eagerly looking up information

the same kindergarten Erin had an interest in the television show Saddle Club

Arelevant to his interests. In(which is pitched at 8-9 year old girls) and enjoys dramatic play about Saddle Club with a group of peers. At home the family has a Pentium 3 computer where Erin accesses interactive sites e.g. Tweenies and ‘educational games’.

Kerry wrote that during Erin’s final term of preschool she discovered the joys of using

In the final term at the preschool Erin printed out pictures of horses. This then

The whole learning experience was based on Erin’s interests and ideas with a few

icons, symbols, multiple modalities of spoken,

the internet for research. Up until her final term Erin was still very shy, preferring not to ask for assistance and communicating with only a few of her close friends. If Erin encountered an issue she would sit and cry instead of working out the concern and using her words. Once in this state she would refuse help and sit and mope for the rest of her session.

lead to writing words and then sentences about horses, using books as well as the internet to find out information, making horses at the collage table and continual dramatic play about the horses. After this initial experience Erin asked to look up horses on the internet every day after this and went on to make her own horse book with pictures and words. Erin confidently shared her information with the group and added her own ideas. Erin found her confidence, strengths and interests and simply blossomed.

suggestions from a teacher. Kerry writes that it was so meaningful because it was “Child initiated” which made her learning journey unique and relevant to her interests and needs. The transformation from a once shy and timid girl to a chatty, confident and happy individual who took control of her own learning was simply magical to see. The way children learn by usingvisual and the artistic is active learning and fits well into social constructivist theory. Learning that is child initiated can be known as inquiry-based or issues-based


learning, or productive pedagogies and this has long been a predominant theory in early childhood education. New learning is engaging

er young children take to this new learning like ducks to

onnects with home, community and school connects with young children’s

preschool the children have access to computers to provide different means

Technology seems to no longer be a choice in society…you either move with it,

ost of the children in the project moved effortlessly between different ICT

ok me was into his bedroom where he had an X-Box set up.

Why do four year old and othwater? Many teachers have had to introduce timers so that children remembered to take turns with the computers as there is rarely enough computers for the number of children. The engagement of children was obvious in all the teachers’ research reports. One child with English as a second language wrote emails to her father who was still living in Argentina and when he replied she became very emotional. A child with behaviour difficulties ‘kinaesthetic touching disorder’ became absolutely taken by the new Smartboard touch screen in a remote rural school. A child who only spoke one and two words began to use long sentences to describe the game Age of Empires. A child with autism and no spoken language was learning to read with a program where the computer speaks. COne reason for engagement is that it relates to and home and community knowledge of ICT. In this project the teachers visited the children’s homes and were taken on a technotour where the children explained to them about technology at home. Kerry writes:

Technology is their world, it is their play. Quite often children know or work things out more quickly on a computer than we as adults do. ICT are very much a part of the children's lives it is their now and their future. Inand ways of learning, they can freely explore and learn how to use the computer. Once the children get to school they need more than just the basics, most of them are already skilled up and raring to go into new and exciting avenues. This is now a skill that needs to be included in our children’s summative reports so that we are giving their future teachers information about children’s knowledge, skill and abilities using the computer as a tool for their learning.

learn and keep up or be left behind. People will be at a disadvantage if they haven't the technology, because with any changes there are expectations that are wide and varied, the way we learn, the way we teach, the way we communicate, the way we interact, the way we live.

Mmediums. Some 4-8 year olds could use scanners, faxes and send email from home. For example, Colleen writes about her technotour with seven year old Misha with his dad accompanying him.

The first place he toAs he went through his stack of CDRoms, his father told me that Misha chooses his own games from the shop, and knows exactly what he wants. Misha pointed out that Harry Potter and Snow Boarding were his favourite games, and said that they were “rated G, so everyone can use them.” He stood up and was very animated as he began to tell me about some of his other games. “This one is M15+ and is for older people,” said Misha as he pulled out the “Halo Combat


Evolved” game. I asked him to show me how one of his games works. Misha chose a game called “Tasmanian Tiger.” Before playing the game, he showed me some footage on the CD that explained how the game was made. He was able to turn the X-Box on, and change the CD by himself.

Misha’s father was watching him and explained to me that when out shopping,

isha was keen to show me how far he could get in the Tasmanian tiger game,

isha turned his computer on, and told me how the different parts functioned.

s Misha was playing a game on the Internet, his father told me about the

isha continued to show me how to play a game on Cartoon Network, while

ost of the technotours revealed that children had access to a large variety of ICT.

In some homes in severely

Misha enjoys playing the games in K-Mart, mastering the moves in a short period of time. He continued to tell me that Misha had wanted a Game Cube console, but he had chosen the X-Box for Misha as it was also a CD player and more games were available for the X-Box. Mand wanted to continue playing. After some gentle persuasion, Misha agreed to show me his computer. MHe had over 20 Russian games that he could play. I asked him if he plays games on the Internet. “Yes, I will show you,” was his reply. As he logged on to the Internet, Misha told me that there were two ways to log on, through Optus (no password) or through Chariot (password required). Misha logged on through the Optus network. He knew exactly what to do. He told me that he remembers the sites he sees on cereal boxes and chip packets. Misha told me that he wanted to send an email to a friend at school, but did not have his friend’s email address. Instead he decided to send his mother an email which contained a virtual card. Afurniture they had purchased to ensure Misha had good posture at the computer. The chair was adjustable and they placed a cushion behind Misha’s back to ensure he was sitting upright. Mtelling me about how and when to use the joystick that was next to the computer. After a lengthy period on the computer, Misha again did not want to exit the game.

MThere were exceptions such as in remote rural areas where computers are used to store farm records and business statements and children are not encouraged to use computers. Many teachers however, commented that even if access at home was limited, so long as there is access at school, the children don’t appear to be disadvantaged.

economically disadvantaged areas teachers found that DVD and video were used a great deal. For example Stephen aged six, said that he couldn’t read. His mother was also attending literacy sessions at the school, yet


Stephen showed his teacher Thomas, how he stored in large filing cabinets according to number, one of several hundred DVDs that his mother lends out to friends to watch. Stephen asked his teacher if he wanted to borrow any of the DVDs ‘Cool’ said Thomas keen to borrow DVDs that he hadn’t seen yet. New learning is social and collaborative The teachers wrote with surprise about the way children chose to work in pairs or in groups and how much peer support occurred. The children realised that they may know part of the procedure about how to get on to the internet of how to use Kidpix but they needed other children to help with the next step. There was talk, problem solving and enjoyment from playing games and creating documents. Children with learning difficulties were supported by their peers. When children made slide shows or animation movies they needed an audience of their peers to show and celebrate what they had created. Some of this learning happened spontaneously and at other times skillful teaching supported the children learning from each other. Now I will move to teacher and researcher learning

Teachers and new learning Teachers were bowled over by what they found out about children’s new learning. In the preschool children went to the Internet to find out more about caterpillars. The children found going to a search engine was a quick and easy way to find information. Children in the first years of school were using hypertext, making imovies, creating animations and moving easily between searching information and then creating paper versions using a range of text genres. Overwhelmingly teachers completed the project enthusiastically wanting to know more about what children were learning with ICT. They often posed further questions about research they wanted to do:

I would like to do a study on what programs the children ( boys and girls) are using and interested in and compare the two. I would also like to observe who accesses the computer? Whose voice don’t we hear? Who is gaining knowledge and positive experiences from using the computer and who isn’t and why?

New learning: Shifted expectations about children’s learning The teaching focus shifted to learning and what children were doing with ICT and this child focus led to a change from any preconceived expectations of what children could do with ICT. The methodology known as learning stories, a narrative approach to data collection must have contributed to this. Learning from children The teachers commented that students today are certainly different. These children have been known as the “clickerati generation”, “process hungry generation” as or “digital natives”. They are part of the NEW MILLENNIUM that is rapidly changing in relation to technology and the information storage and retrieval systems available to them. Most teachers asked children to help out with technology as sometimes the children were more skilled, took more chances, or could just do it better than teachers. One


teacher commented that using ICT was the only area of the curriculum where the teacher was not the expert. As this was a two year project some teachers could observe the development of children over the two years and noted significant learning over time. For example Jenny writes about Jack and the considerable progress he made with his home use of the Internet.

Jack sent his footy tips in each week and this led him to go on-line to AFL for Kids. There were footy games that Jack could play as well. He was very confident using the computer to search for information that he wanted to learn more about. Jack is a competent reader. When I asked him what he did when he found information out that he couldn’t read on the Internet he said that he reads it. Do you understand it “YES”. Maybe the information rich resource such as the Internet may appeal to boys. My observation in the classroom, is that there are a group of boys, Jack being one of them, that congregate around the computer in activity time, to search out soccer sites. The other day I found some students downloading songs; something that we have trouble with our year 6/7 students doing. What will the year 6/7 students be doing in the future? A strong program based around the critical literacy component of using resources from the Internet may need to be devised.

Mentors, buddies and peer support Teachers were paired or buddied-up and in the reports of the study there was unsolicited praise for their learning partner, their colleague who taught them new skills, helped them talk through ideas and problem solved. This form of buddy learning assisted all as teachers like the children were at different staring points. One experienced ICT teacher who was a peer-coach with a teacher with less experience wrote about ‘just in time learning’ which is different from preorganised professional development sessions as the ‘just in time’ support is given when there is a problem to solve, for real purposes, and when there is an end product in mind and how to get there is unclear. Teachers themselves enjoyed using ICT The teachers used new media to describe learning, to explain, instruct, assess and keep records In the preschool teachers used digital cameras to record children’s learning for the children to see and to show to parents. Some teachers made CDs as a portfolio of children’s learning in the first year of school. Others made Power point presentations to visually record children’s work for children and parents to enjoy. Teacher as researcher The teacher as researcher model (Lytle & Cochran-Smith, 1992) for investigation was extremely successful. We also involved a variety of experts to present information to challenge and extend our thinking. Kay Mathie at Stradbroke wrote

I think the keys to this project being successful have been professional and intellectual support for the project, release time support and administrative support.


I have had the opportunity to develop closer relationships with two of my students’ families.

I love the use of learning stories to reflect on learning and to share with parents.

What new knowledge was created? There were several new creative ideas generated in the project.

The technotour The technotour enabled children to show teachers what they could do with ICT at home. This became a starting point for the curriculum - similar to the work of Moll et al (1992) and their community funds of knowledge which were used as a basis for curriculum planning.

C/ICT framework To do this we built on the work of Freebody and Luke’s four roles of a reader and Durrant & Green’s 3D (2003) model of operational, cultural and critical knowledge. We built the C/ICT framework with four easy to use quadrants of functional, meaning maker, critical analyser and transformer (see appendix).

Electronic learning stories The data collection was through electronic multimedia learning stories which are a narrative approach prompting observation and story telling about children’s learning (See Carr, 2001; Carr, May, & Podmore with Cubey, Hatherly,.& Macartney, 2000; Witherell & Noddings, 1991, Clandinin & Connelly, 1990). The learning stories freed teachers to describe and show children’s learning plus the teachers added their own thoughts, plans and puzzles as reflections throughout. The learning stories were a powerful research methodology that also captivated the interest and understanding of other teachers.

Multimodal intelligences Jenny at Grange suggested that Howard Garners multiple intelligences may be a promising way to extend our work with multimodal technologies and new literacies.

Multiple Intelligences These are:- Logical Mathematical Intelligence MATHS SMART Visual Spatial Intelligence ART SMART Interpersonal Intelligence PEOPLE SMART Intra-personal Intelligence MYSELF SMART Musical Intelligence MUSIC SMART Verbal Linguistic Intelligence WORD SMART Bodily Kinaesthetic Intelligences BODY SMART Naturalist Intelligences NATURE SMART.

Multi-layered tasks Children are bombarded by an information glut and need to be involved in relevant tasks, which allow them to make decisions and be creative thinkers. This approach to


tasks allows for more in depth tasks rather than students being involved in just regurgitating facts. Importantly, students need to analyse and synthesise information. In addition ICT supports teachers to set up Web Quests to support children to work through masses of information. HyperStudio allows students to create work in a non-linear environment. Buttons take students to another card where animation and sound can be added very simply.

Edges boundaries, questions still to be explored When we began this research preschool centres typically inherited hand-me-down, out-of-date technology from the higher years of school or community sources, inhibiting the use of multimodal software. This now has changed and preschools have up to date state of the art curriculum computers to operate the open ended programs they need. There was great diversity in teacher knowledge, skill and confidence with ICT and many early childhood teachers were learning alongside the children or in some cases the children themselves became the instructors. On the other hand others made movies with children, took digital photographs of activities, made CD-ROM portfolios of children’s achievements and created animated narratives with multimodal communication systems. There are implications here for professional development for teachers and we can learn a lot from the teacher’s reports about what successful models they suggest. We discussed clever commercialism for example Barbie.com and children being used as commercial fodder and on the other hand the ways teachers can build on these community resources to teach literacy. What did we decide? We have several options

1. Ban new media, popular culture from school implying that children are passive victims of rampant commercialism with evil intent.

2. Teach children that commercial motives are to be always distrusted implying that children’s pleasure from Barbie.com is somehow wrong.

3. Trust that children are active in constructing new media and can just as quickly reject this. They are not just passive victims.

We decided that option three was the best way forward. Many teachers wanted to explore critical literacy and the role of critical analyser with young children.

Where to now? We have questions still to be explored. A teacher writes: Next year I hope to work on developing critical literacy skills. Recently during a sharing session, Mitch bought a laser gun that his mum had bought him from Melbourne. I suggested to Mitch that he might like to find out what a laser light is. He said yep, I’ll go to GOOGLE. Another child in the class had a science book. I said OK. Let’s see who can find the information first. Mitch said but websites would be more accurate. (???) I had talked to them about who publishes on the www, but still the students had the view that it must be the correct information.


The person with the book found the information first. Sometimes it is quicker and easier to use traditional text. That alerted me to the fact that I probably needed to do some work around this aspect of the web. Students today need to be equipped differently from the past. It is an exciting new era that requires different tools to access the depth of connectivity.

Conclusion To conclude I will draw again on Jenny’s report where she writes:

Man walked on the moon in 1969. I watched this marvellous event at home on a TV made of tubes and valves, built by my dad. The computer they used to travel to the moon then, had a smaller capacity than the ones used in schools by students now. These students that we are teaching now are our future. It is in their creative, imaginative and collaborative minds that we will see our future created. By nurturing and encouraging our students to be critical thinkers and problem solvers we best equip them for life as active participants in the NEW MILLENNIUM or the “Knowledge Era” of the 21st Century.



♦

♦

♦

♦

♦

♦

♦

♦

Transformer ♦ What have I learnt and what

can I do now? How can I use my skills in

another way? How can I extend and play

with my new knowledge?

Meaning Maker ♦ What meanings or

understandings am I creating? Do I understand the purpose

of the activity? What prior knowledge have I

brought to this activity? What understandings do I

have of multimodal literacies?

Literacy

Numeracy

ICT

Functional User ♦ As a learner what can I do and

how do I do it? How do I use a range of ICT -

cameras, videos, computers? How do I demonstrate my use of

the Internet/software programs? How do I show evidence of

exploratory play?

Critical analyser ♦ How does

gender/ethnicity/culture impact on

♦

♦

♦

♦

my ICT use? What equity perspectives affect

my identity/self concept when using ICT?

How does power and positioning affect my ICT use?

What evidence is there that I am critically analyzing the literacies on offer?

Can I choose appropriate software /hardware /information to support my


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Documents

Findings from the children of the new millennium project