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493 Emergent Media Literacy: Digital Animation in Early Childhood Jackie Marsh University of Sheffield, School of Education, UK This paper outlines a research project in which three- and four-year-old children in one nursery engaged with editing software to create short animated films. Research questions were related to the knowledge and understanding of multimodal texts that the children developed in the activity, the skills they demonstrated in undertaking the animation work and the implications for curriculum development. Qualitative data were collected over the period of an academic year as children were observed (using fieldnotes and video camera) planning and producing the films. This paper analyses some of the knowledge and understanding of multimodal texts developed through- out the project and suggests that early childhood educators need to understand the nature of new authorial practices if they are to provide appropriate scaffolding for children’s learning in the new media age. doi: 10.2167/le660.0 Keywords: media literacy, digital animation, multimodality, early childhood In a global context, early years curricula are focused on print-based texts and in many early years settings children’s previous learning in homes and com- munities with new technologies is largely discounted. However, such learning is becoming increasingly central to children’s multimodal, communicative practices (Marsh et al., 2005). This paper outlines a research project in which three- and four-year-old children in one nursery engaged with editing software to create short animated films, some of which were planned initially using story- boards. Research questions were related to the knowledge and understanding of multimodal texts that the children developed in the activity, the skills they demonstrated in undertaking the animation work and the implications for cur- riculum and professional development. Qualitative data were collected over the period of an academic year as children were observed (using fieldnotes and video camera) planning and producing the films. This paper analyses some of the knowledge and understanding of multimodal texts developed throughout the project, in particular children’s understanding of the affordances offered by the different media, that is what each media enabled them to do, or how it limited possibilities. In addition, the processes the children were involved in as they produced these multimodal texts were analysed in relation to Lankshear and Knobel’s (2004) categories of the writer/reader roles of the digitally ‘at home’, specifically, the roles of ‘designer of texts’ and ‘text bricoleur’. The impli- cations of this work for policy and practice in early childhood education are discussed. 0950-0782/06/06 0493-14 $20.00/0 © 2006 J. Marsh LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION Vol. 20, No. 6, 2006 le20-6.indb 493 30/11/2006 09:44:31

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Emergent Media Literacy: Digital Animation in Early Childhood

Jackie MarshUniversity of Sheffield, School of Education, UK

This paper outlines a research project in which three- and four-year-old children in one nursery engaged with editing software to create short animated films. Research questions were related to the knowledge and understanding of multimodal texts that the children developed in the activity, the skills they demonstrated in undertaking the animation work and the implications for curriculum development. Qualitative data were collected over the period of an academic year as children were observed (using fieldnotes and video camera) planning and producing the films. This paper analyses some of the knowledge and understanding of multimodal texts developed through-out the project and suggests that early childhood educators need to understand the nature of new authorial practices if they are to provide appropriate scaffolding for children’s learning in the new media age.

doi: 10.2167/le660.0

Keywords: media literacy, digital animation, multimodality, early childhood

In a global context, early years curricula are focused on print-based texts and in many early years settings children’s previous learning in homes and com-munities with new technologies is largely discounted. However, such learning is becoming increasingly central to children’s multimodal, communicative practices (Marsh et al., 2005). This paper outlines a research project in which three- and four-year-old children in one nursery engaged with editing software to create short animated films, some of which were planned initially using story-boards. Research questions were related to the knowledge and understanding of multimodal texts that the children developed in the activity, the skills they demonstrated in undertaking the animation work and the implications for cur-riculum and professional development. Qualitative data were collected over the period of an academic year as children were observed (using fieldnotes and video camera) planning and producing the films. This paper analyses some of the knowledge and understanding of multimodal texts developed throughout the project, in particular children’s understanding of the affordances offered by the different media, that is what each media enabled them to do, or how it limited possibilities. In addition, the processes the children were involved in as they produced these multimodal texts were analysed in relation to Lankshear and Knobel’s (2004) categories of the writer/reader roles of the digitally ‘at home’, specifically, the roles of ‘designer of texts’ and ‘text bricoleur’. The impli-cations of this work for policy and practice in early childhood education are discussed.

0950-0782/06/06 0493-14 $20.00/0 © 2006 J. MarshLANGUAGE AND EDUCATION Vol. 20, No. 6, 2006

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Changing LiteraciesAlthough it is widely accepted that there have been profound changes to

literacy as a result of technological developments in recent years (Carrington, 2004; Kress, 2003; Lankshear & Knobel, 2003), there is far less agreement on what this means for literacy itself. Some argue that literacy is still focused on written language (Kress, 2003), others that it should now be seen as plural in nature and embodying a range of modalities (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000). Just to add to this confusion, phrases which incorporate the word ‘literacy’ are now being used to suggest competence in a range of areas – emotional literacy, computer literacy and so on. The area which is a focus for this paper is ‘media literacy’, a term which now has wide currency within England as a result of the Office for Communication’s (Ofcom) remit to develop media literacy amongst the general population.1 Ofcom define media literacy as ‘the ability to access, understand and create communications in a variety of contexts’ (Ofcom, 2004). Within this paper, this term is used to indicate that the activities analysed fall within this remit, although the broader argument is made that these activities should take place within the communications, language and literacy strands of early years curricula. In addition, it needs to be recognised that if media literacy were to be introduced as a separate curriculum subject from English, this has dangerous consequences for the literacy curriculum itself, which could remain enmeshed in print-focused practices that relate more to the social milieu of the 20th century than the 21st.

In relation to young children, there is growing evidence to suggest that they are engaged in a wide range of digitised literacy practices from birth (Marsh, 2005). A major US study conducted for the Kaiser Foundation (Rideout et al., 2003) surveyed over 1000 parents of 0–6 year olds. They found that young children were using screen media (television, video/DVD, computers, console games) for approximately two hours per day. This is a similar figure to that identified in a recent study conducted in England (Marsh et al., 2005). In addition, very young children are acculturated to family social practices which utilise a range of contemporary technologies, such as text messaging and interactive television (Marsh, 2004; Gillen et al., 2005). By the time they start nursery education, many children are already competent in using a wide range of technological artefacts and have developed understandings about their uses in wider social practices (Knobel, 2005). However, this knowledge is not always recognised or built upon in meaningful ways (Knobel & Lankshear, 2003; Plowman & Stephen, 2003).

This paper explores the digital communicative practices of three- and four-year-old children as they made animated films using a laptop computer. Animated films are created by sequencing a series of still images until they give the appearance of movement. They can be produced in various ways – through drawings, models and computer graphics, for example – and they form a large part of many children’s cultural pleasures, as the popularity of films such as Toy Story (Walt Disney Pictures, 1995) and Finding Nemo (Walt Disney Pictures, 2003) suggests. There has been very little research undertaken in relation to the digital production of films by young children.

In a recent review of research which has focused on the analysis and pro-

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duction of the moving image, one important aspect of media education, Burn and Leach (2004) identified only 12 studies in the UK which were relevant to their review and, of these, four involved children of primary school age. None involved children in the foundation stage (three- to five-years-old). This lack of attention in the early years to a range of contemporary communicative practices is of concern, as it is clear that in this post-Fordist society, young people will be leaving school and emerging into the labour force needing a range of skills and knowledge which will equip them sufficiently well for employment in techno-logically driven, globalised societies (Luke & Luke, 2001). The concern to develop digital literacy is not confined to employment needs; technology-mediated literacy forms a large part of children and young people’s out-of-school social practices (Lankshear & Knobel, 2005). These developments require an education system which acknowledges the centrality of digital literacy practices from birth in order to build on and develop these in appropriate, incremental ways, instead of viewing such practices as suitable for development only at a later stage of schooling, once children are competent with alphabetic print. Lack of attention to digital communicative practices ignores the extensive knowledge of a range of new media, such as computer games and mobile phones, that young children bring with them to nurseries and kindergartens (Marsh, 2004). The introduc-tion of media education into early years curricula is, therefore, needed urgently if children are to build successfully on their ‘funds of knowledge’ (Moll et al., 1992) and extend appropriately the skills, knowledge and understanding they acquire in homes and communities from an early age.

There have been a few studies conducted which have explored the produc-tion of films in schools. Reid et al. (2002) evaluated the work of 50 schools which introduced digital filming and editing into the curriculum and found that intro-ducing work on moving image media supported the development of a range of transferable skills, including ‘problem-solving, negotiation, thinking, reasoning and risk-taking’ (Reid et al., 2002: 3). In addition, they determined that the opportunities afforded by animation work were strong because of the way in which children could combine voice, gesture, music, image and language. It may be the case that the difficulties in developing sustained analyses of media production in schools lie in the area of assessment and evaluation (Goodwyn, 2004). There has been little documented work on the assessment of produc-tion skills and most acknowledge the complexities and challenges faced by this aspect of media education (Buckingham et al., 1995). In this study, one of the concerns was to map out the skills, knowledge and understanding developed in the animation production in order to provide a framework for future work on assessment.

The ProjectThe study was undertaken in a nursery in the north of England. The nursery

serves very diverse racial and linguistic communities, with a large number of refugee families located in the area. It is an area of economic deprivation and high unemployment and thus constitutes the type of catchment area which has families often labelled ‘at risk’. However, the concept of ‘at-riskness’ has been widely critiqued because of its focus on the communities in question rather

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than the larger sociopolitical context which creates poverty in the first place (Carrington & Luke, 2003; Gregory & Williams, 2000). Although 53 children took part in the animation work, this paper focuses on the work of only three children: Jasim and Sofia, who were both four years of age, and Emma, who was three until the final month of the project, when she had her fourth birthday. The work of these three children in particular was chosen for discussion because it exemplifies the theoretical concern of this paper; that is, the processes involved in moving from print to moving image media. Jasim was a boy of Pakistani heritage who spoke Punjabi as a first language and English as an additional language. Sofia’s family were refugees from Somalia and she spoke Arabic as a first language. Emma was white, monolingual, and lived with a middle class family. Although Jasim and Emma had access to computers at home, neither had engaged in animation work before. Sofia did not have access to a computer at home.

During the study, an ‘animation studio’ was set up in one corner of the nursery on a regular basis. This consisted of one or two laptops, connected to which were webcams. There were a variety of props to hand for the animation: toy figures, artefacts and scenery. Some children planned their stories first using a storyboard, although the majority preferred not to plan them at all. The children filmed the plastic figures using webcams, chosen because their small, pod-like shape meant that the cameras could be placed in stable positions by the children and could be operated using the laptops. The children then used a piece of film-editing software, imovie2, to edit the animations. Although imovie has been found to have limitations for more advanced moving image production work, such as that undertaken by media studies students in secondary schools (Reid et al., 2002), it was a very effective piece of software in the project discussed in this paper.

Children were provided with opportunities to undertake the activity over the course of the school year and 53 three- and four-year-old children in total were involved in film production. Research questions which guided the project included: what knowledge and understanding of multimodal texts and pro-duction skills are developed in this activity and what are the implications for curriculum and pedagogy? I took part in the activity as a participant observer, acting in the role of teacher, but also making notes and filming the workshops at appropriate times. I demonstrated how to use the hardware and software, outlined the process for children, answered their questions and provided help when they required it. This scaffolding took the form of verbal instructions and modelling when appropriate. The majority of children were able to complete most of the activities independently, requiring adult help only in the transfer of images from the webcam software to imovie2. The activity did demand that the children were able to control a mouse independently. A minority of children found mouse control so difficult that they did not persist in the task of creating a film.

Research methods included observations of the children using the hardware and software, which were recorded as fieldnotes, video filming of short sequences of the animation workshops and analysis of the films the children produced. Parental consent was obtained for the use of video films and chil-dren’s participation in the research. Children were not formally interviewed, but were asked about their previous experiences with new technologies in the

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home and community and questioned about their understanding of aspects of the animation activity during the workshops. These conversations were detailed in the fieldnotes.

This paper reports on findings arising from the following data sources: field-notes from 19 animation workshops, 64 minutes of video film of the children producing the films, and 67 films produced by the children. Inductive coding (Strauss, 1987) techniques were used in analysing the data from the field-notes and video recording and a thematic framework (Ritchie et al., 2003) was developed for categorising data relating to the production of the films. The chil-dren’s animations were examined using a process in which individual stills and completed films were analysed in terms of plot, characterisation and setting. Aspects of editing (such as the camera angles and the soundtrack) were then subject to close scrutiny, drawing on principles underpinning the grammar of moving image (Burn & Parker, 2003). Where relevant, comparisons were then made with the story as planned on storyboard.

The initial part of this paper focuses on only three aspects of the skills, knowledge and understanding developed in this activity. The first relates to the children’s understanding of the affordances offered by the different media. The second centres on their understanding of the process of transduction (Kress, 2003), which is the process of transforming semiotic material from one mode to another. The third issue of concern is that relating to the understanding of the principles of animation, specifically time–space dimensions. In the final part of the paper, the processes the children were involved in as they produced the animated films were analysed in relation to Lankshear and Knobel’s (2004) cat-egories of the writer/reader roles of the digitally ‘at home’, specifically, the roles of ‘designer of texts’ and ‘text bricoleur’.

Multimodal StoriesAn analysis of the data collected during this project indicated that a wide

range of skills, understanding and knowledge was developed (see Appendix for a summary of these). Given the lack of knowledge we have of young children’s understanding in relation to multimodal texts, the following discussion focuses on the children’s awareness of the affordances of the different media used and the transduction process. Both of these concepts (affordances and transduction) have been explained in the work of Kress (2003). Affordances are the possibili-ties offered by different modes, what kinds of representations they will allow and what they will or will not permit in terms of use. Transduction occurs when semiotic material is shifted across modes:

This is not the process of transformation, the process which works on a structure and its elements in one mode, but of transduction, a process in which something which has been configured or shaped in one or more modes is reconfigured, reshaped according to the affordances of a quite different mode. It is a change of a different order, a more thoroughgoing change. (Kress, 2003: 47)

In relation to the children’s understanding of the affordances of the different modes, this was expressed in various ways. Sofia, aged four, planned a story

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on paper which was quite typical for this age group in that it included familiar characters drawn from her experiences of family life. The storyboard outlined a narrative that focused on a girl who was ‘walking and clapping’. A baby entered the plot and the baby ‘crashed the cupboard’. Sofia then produced an animated film in 10 frames which incorporated a soundtrack that included clapping and crashing sounds at appropriate points in the story. What was interesting about this film was that Sofia had spent some time observing other children making their films before she attempted her own. During those observations, she had seen children add a soundtrack to their films and two of the soundtracks on the menu of imovie2 consisted of the sounds of an audience clapping and glass breaking. These were duly incorporated into Sofia’s animated film and it is tempting to consider whether she had included these elements deliberately into her storyboard because of her anticipation of the affordances of the digitally produced text.

A number of children in the study were asked, once their stories in both media were completed, what they felt were the similarities and differences between their paper and moving-image versions. Their answers are collated in Table 1.

Sofia suggested that the difference between her story on paper and the animated film was that one could ‘hear the cupboard crashing’ on her film. These data point to children’s emergent ability to articulate the differences in the affordances of different modes. Children demonstrated their implicit under-standing of this in their creation of the films, often drawing on features of the visual mode (relationship of objects to each other in space) and aural mode (adding very specific sound effects to their films). None of the children who planned their stories on paper first appeared to have difficulties with the task of recreating their story multimodally, in that all of the transitions from paper to digital media maintained key aspects of the paper-based narrative, whilst utilising the affordances of the additional modes effectively. The children’s early understandings of the principles of this transformation may have been developed through their experiences of encountering narratives in a range of media from an early age (Robinson & Mackey, 2003).

Time and SpaceIn animated films, still images are sequenced to portray movement and this

presents a challenge in terms of children’s understandings of time and space in multimodal texts. For some children, the three-dimensional sequencing of actions in a chronological narrative proved to be difficult. This could have been a result of difficulties in conceptual understanding of what was required, no doubt related to their particular stage of cognitive development. For example,

Table 1 Similarities and differences in the stories across the media, identified by the children

Similarities Differences

Characters the sameSame story in both (point related to plot structure)

••

Characters move in the animated filmThe animated film included sounds

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some children attempted to convey movement through their framing of char-acters and animals for a single still shot, rather than sequencing that movement across frames. This, noticeably, was a feature of the work of some boys. In the following example, Jasim spent a long time juxtaposing a large number of animals for one shot, conveying action through the sound effects and gestures he used as he placed the animals. However, when edited, his films conveyed little movement or narrative structure, as can be seen in Figure 1 – this had all been contained in the setting up of the shots.

In the next example, Emma developed a storyboard which consisted of 12 individual frames that detailed a complex story of a family visit to a campsite. The narrative involved a car journey, the family putting up the tent, sleeping overnight in the tent, playing football on the campsite and having a flat tyre on the way home. As can be seen in Figure 2, Emma’s film maintained this complex plot.

Figure 1 Jasim’s film

Figure 2 Emma’s campsite film

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In this example, Emma appears to be presenting key moments in her plot – it is a three-dimensional version of a storyboard. Indeed, in many of the films created by the children in the project, they treated each clip as a scene in itself, rather than understanding that the principle of animation is the presentation of movement frame-by-frame. This was also the case in the animation work that Sefton-Green and Parker undertook with six- and nine-year-old students (Sefton-Green & Parker, 2000). In that study, children were more concerned with conveying key points of action in the narrative than portraying movement and this was also the case with Sofia and Emma’s work seen here. That, perhaps, reflects the way in which the children were transferring understanding of plot located within their print-based narratives to the new mode and they were thus treating the animation activity as if it consisted of the simple process of trans-forming plot from paper to screen. Indeed, there are many similarities across modes, and the structuring of stories in both printed and moving image media has been identified as analogous, with narratives in both modes having similar characteristics (Robinson, 1997), but it is the case that the affordances of these modes are very different and so some fundamental changes occur when moving from one to the other. However, although the evidence from the work of Sofia and Emma suggests that the children found it difficult to understand the dura-tional element of the construction of animated films, in a closer look at the work, it is possible to trace an emergent understanding of the principles of animation. For example, in frames 7 and 8 of Emma’s film (Figure 2), the football used in the football match can be seen moving across the pitch. This may indicate that Emma has grasped the underlying principles of animation and this comes to the fore when she attempts to convey a football match, which focuses on the movement of a ball across a field. However, in addition to issues relating to stages of conceptual development, it is not surprising that the children found the portrayal of movement using still pictures difficult, given the challenge such work posed to their habitual use of the time–space continuum when construct-ing texts. In Figure 3, this continuum is represented by a quadrant.

Quadrant A represents those texts in which both time and space are highly salient. This is the case with moving image narratives, which have a chron-ological sequence and are also visual texts that depend on images. Texts in quadrant B still have time as a central element, but spatial considerations are less important. Oral and written narratives, which depend on chronology, but do not incorporate images, belong here. Of course, space is more important in written narratives than oral, given the importance of the space of the page, the layout and so on (Kress, 2003), but it is certainly less important than it is for texts which belong in quadrants A or C. Quadrant C represents texts in which spatial issues are very important, but time less so. Texts which can be placed in this quadrant include still images, or non-chronological moving image texts. Finally, in quadrant D, texts in which neither time nor space are salient can be placed. These include non-chronological oral or written reports (although again, space will be more important in written reports than oral).

Because the animation activity involved shifts across the time continuum, from quadrant C to A, and shifts across the space continuum, from quadrant B to A, the evidence in this paper suggests that it presented conceptual difficul-ties for the children. Since the storyboard focused their attention on overall plot

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construction, it shifted the emphasis away from the principles of animation. I decided, therefore, to work with children on one key point in their narratives and help them to construct animated movements on a micro-scale, focusing on the time–space dynamics of quadrant C. So, for example, the football match in Emma’s camping story was chosen as the sequence for focused work, because she had already demonstrated an emergent understanding of the principles of animation here. Emma worked on portraying movement of the football from one player to another and did not place this within the wider narrative context. Once the process of creating this animated movement was modelled for her, she worked independently on creating 23 shots which, when sequenced, conveyed the movement of the ball (see Figure 4).

It may be the case that if children at this age develop an understanding of the principles of animation through single-action sequences, in future years they would be able to extend this to create extended animated versions of their stories. However, as was suggested earlier, very little of this kind of media production occurs in the early years of primary school and, therefore, it is not possible to map out a possible continuum of skills and understanding at this stage. Nevertheless, from this work, it is clear that there are a number of learning opportunities offered in the development of animated films in the early years. In exploring the processes involved in moving narratives from page to screen, Jasim, Emma and Sofia had learned that stories can be told in a number of media (Mackey, 2002); images, sounds and words can be combined to create narratives (Bearne, 2003); stories planned on paper can be changed, through the transduc-tion process (Kress, 2003), to feature the affordances of different modes; and that stories have a beginning, middle and end and can feature one or more charac-ters, in whatever media they are developed. All of these are important lessons in a new media age, as all of the skills, knowledge and understanding identi-

Non-chronologicalwriting or oral reports(D)

Still images ornon-chronologicalmoving image texts (C)

Moving imagenarratives (A) Oral or written

narratives (B)

Space less salientSpace highly salient

Time less salient

Time highly salient

Figure 3 Time–space continuum

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fied here are necessary as children begin to navigate the multiple platforms of current technologies (Kress, 2003; Mackey, 2002).

However, one consequence of this kind of curriculum activity is that educators need to develop new understandings of the nature of authorship and readership in relation to multimodal texts. In the final section of this paper, the processes the children were involved in as they produced these texts are analysed in relation to Lankshear and Knobel’s (2004) categories of the writer/reader roles of the digitally ‘at home’, specifically, the roles of ‘designer of texts’ and ‘text bricoleur’.

Changing Textual PracticesLankshear and Knobel (2004) identify four roles that they suggest charac-

terise the practices people engage in as they produce, distribute and exchange texts in a new media age. Using the phrase ‘the digitally at home’ to describe a generation comfortable with and competent in the use of new technologies, the roles they outline for these digitally at home are: a ‘designer’ of texts; a text ‘mediator’ or ‘broker’; a text ‘bricoleur’ and a text ‘jammer’ (Lankshear & Knobel, 2004). In the following analysis, I will focus on two of these roles – a designer of text and text bricoleur – in order to explore the processes in which the children in this study engaged.

Lankshear and Knobel emphasise that the concept of design, rather than traditional conceptions of authorship, is important in the production of multi-modal, digital texts. This has also been a constant theme in the work of Gunther Kress over the last decade (1998a, 1998b, 2003).

Design takes for granted competence in the use of resources, but beyond that it requires the orchestration and remaking of these resources in the service of frameworks and models that express the maker’s intentions in shaping the social and cultural environment. (Kress, 1998a: 77)

Figure 4 Stills of Emma’s football film

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In relation to this study, the children demonstrated skills in relation to the design of multimodal texts. They made deliberate choices about characters, props, setting, soundtrack and the design for each still frame, choices which were based on knowledge of the screen as a medium for communication and the genre of animation as a form of entertainment. Children demonstrated critical engagement with texts through these decisionmaking processes. This has impli-cations for the early years educator in that an understanding is needed of the ways in which such decisionmaking processes can be supported and extended. In addition, recognition of the range of resources children draw on as they make these decisions need to be developed within nurseries and schools. Educators who have a broader understanding of the rich range of textual practices children bring to the classroom have greater opportunities to enhance children’s learning (Dyson, 1997, 2002; Pahl & Rowsell, 2005).

In addition to text ‘designer’, Lankshear and Knobel also identify the role of text ‘bricoleur’ as being significant to contemporary communicative practices. Lankshear and Knobel draw on de Certau’s concept of bricolage as being the ‘artisant like inventiveness’ (de Certau, 1984: xv, 66) of people’s everyday practices in which they draw on whatever is to hand to create texts. Although Lankshear and Knobel illustrate the concept by focusing on web users’ creation of texts within online communities, the principles can be applied to the way in which some of the children in this study created their multimodal, animated films. For example, Jasim and his friend Tahir decided to use a snatch of the Jungle Book soundtrack they had heard being played by other children as part of the soundtrack for a film they had produced based on a story about jungle animals. Sofia incorporated the clapping and crashing soundtracks she had heard others use into her narrative. Of course, this intertextual aspect of children’s texts is not particular to new technologies; as the work of Dyson indicates in relation to children’s paper-based writing tasks, Bahktinian principles of heteroglossia and dialogical processes permeate children’s classroom work (Dyson, 1997, 2002).

The roles identified by Lankshear and Knobel, those of ‘designer’ and ‘bricoleur’, require new understandings of educators. For example, there is a need to identify the nature of the scaffolding and adult support children need as they create multimodal, digital texts. The modelling provided for Emma as she moved from animated film as conveying key moments in her plot to animated film as portraying movement is one example of the way in which teaching and learning approaches to the time–space elements of traditional texts need to be rethought. But there are additional concerns related to design and text construction that need consideration. The creation of appropriate pedagogical and curricular approaches can only occur through detailed analyses of classroom projects which trace the skills, knowledge and understanding developed in media production. There is a large body of work which outlines what is known about young children’s print-based literacy skills (Hall et al., 2003; Neuman & Dickinson, 2001). There is now an urgent need to begin to map out similar terrain in relation to multimodal communicative practices.

ConclusionIn this paper, I have outlined a project in which aspects of moving image

education were introduced into the curriculum of one nursery. Only by pushing

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at traditional curriculum boundaries can educators begin to shape a curriculum which will be relevant for a highly technologised 21st century (Lankshear & Knobel, 2005). Although projects such as the one detailed in this paper are a start to this work, greater attention could be paid to media education in early childhood by governments and policymakers who are responsible for cur-riculum development. Children and, in some cases, teachers can continue to bring unbridled enthusiasm for, and expertise in, new technologies to the site of learning, but unless curriculum and assessment frameworks reflect these contemporary communicative practices, educational provision will continue to remain out of step with rapid developments in the wider world.

CorrespondenceAny correspondence should be directed to Dr Jackie Marsh, University

of Sheffield, School of Education, 388 Glossop Road, Sheffield S10 2JA, UK ([email protected]).

Note1. See: http://www.ofcom.org.uk/media/news/2004/11/nr_20041102

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506 Language and Education

Appendix: Knowledge, skills and understanding developed in the animation activity

Actions Knowledge, skills and understandingThe ability to:

Technical skills Controlling the mouseUsing camera softwareUsing imovie software

move cursor to desired spaceuse left-hand button to selectclick and dragfind appropriate button for taking photographuse various functions appropriately (e.g. timeline, stop/replay buttons, adding sounds)

••••

Visual skills Framing shots position characters and artefacts appropriatelyuse close-ups, mid-shots and long shots

Understanding of narrative

Creating stories create a story with a beginning, middle and endcreate a story with one or more characterscreate a setting

Understanding of multimodality

Using different modes understand the affordances of different modesbe aware of the differences in affordances of various modesunderstand the processes involved in transduction across modes

Understanding of genre (animation)

Creating stop-motion animation

understand the principles of stop-motion animation (i.e. that a series of still images portraying small changes in movement can, when placed together, create illusion of larger movements)understand the importance of principles such as continuity

Awareness of audience

Creating films which reflected interests of peers

identify themes which will interest the audience (family, play, jungles)identify props and soundtracks which will attract the audience

Critical skills Reflecting on product; making changes where necessary

identify aspects of the work which needed changing, e.g. shots which included children’s own handsidentify features which were particularly successful in meeting audience’s needs and repeating these, e.g. sound effects

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