Telling and sharing stories with tablets - emerging literacy practices in primary school classrooms
Submitted by:
Anna-Lena Godhe
Abstract:
Based on observations in a primary school classroom, this presentation discusses and analyses emerging literacy practices in connection with the pupils’ use of tablets when creating narratives based on their own interests.
In 2011 a new curricula was introduced in Sweden where the use of digital technology in teaching was stressed. Based on the requirement in the new curricula, many schools decided to invest in personal digital devices for all pupils. In 2011 tablets were also a relatively new phenomenon. This study was conducted at a school in southern Sweden where the headmaster decided to invest in tablets to all first year pupils. One teacher and her group of pupils were observed over a period of three years. Particular attention was given to how the introduction of the tablets affected the activities in the classroom. The pupils were allowed to take the tablet home during weekends and school holidays.
This presentation focuses on the literacy practices that developed on Monday mornings in this class. That the pupils were allowed to use and explore the tablets during the weekends meant that they were eager to share what they had done with their classmates on Monday mornings. During the first lesson on Monday mornings the teacher therefore decided to let the pupils share and present something that they had done over the weekend with the rest of the class.
In the analysis of the empirical material, the concepts of affinity space (Gee and Hayes, 2011) and boundary (e.g. Engeström, 2009; Akkerman & Bakker, 2011) have been used. Affinity spaces are characterized by a shared interest where knowledge and experiences are shared and content is created through interaction (Gee & Hayes, 2011), whereas classroom activities are governed by rules and largely determined based on what pupil should learn. The concept of boundary is used to denote how activities in different environments, such as a classroom and a home environment, are affected by the context. Boundaries may therefore shed light both on similarities and differences relating to the context and which affect what and how activities are performed.
The analysis show that the narratives on Monday mornings are determined by the pupils interests and becomes a space where the pupils actively contribute to each other’s narratives and help each other to solve problems, for example in connection to games. An environment where the pupils dare to express themselves is created and this also contributes to collaborations between pupils in the classroom. The tablets become boundary objects that connect activities at home and in school which creates coherence between different contexts but also contribute to develop the pupils ability to express themselves, verbally and in multimodal narratives.
References;
Akkerman, S. F., & Bakker, A. (2011) Boundary Crossing and Boundary Objects. Review of Educational Research (81/2). 132-169.
Engeström, Y. (2009) Expansive learning: toward an activity-theoretical reconceptualization. In Illeris, K. (Ed.), Contemporary theories of learning: learning theorists in their own words. New York: Routledge.
Gee, J., & Hayes, E. (2011) Nurturing affinity spaces and gamebased learning. In Steinkuehler, C., Squire K. & Barab, S. (Eds.), Games, learning and Society: Learning and Meaning in the Digital Age. Cambridge University Press.
Anna-Lena Godhe - anna-lena.godhe@gu.se, anna-lena.godhe@mah.se
Karin Jönsson - karin.jonsson@mah.se