A presentation by Jackie Marsh in My Media Playground seminar 14th Feb 2013 in Tampere, Finland.

1. Play, Creativity
and Digital
Cultures
Jackie Marsh
University of Sheffield, UK

2. Structure of Talk
• Young children’s digital literacy practices in homes
and communities
• Playful pedagogies in early years settings and schools
• Future developments and the implications for
educators and researchers

3. Family Digital
Literacy Practices
Children’s Use of
Virtual Worlds
Children’s Games
and Rhymes in a
New Media Age

4. •Four children, two boys and two girls,aged
between 2- 4 years, filmed by parents
engaging in digital literacy practices
•Parents interviewed regarding the
data
•175 children aged 5-11 completed an online
survey
•26 children took part in group and individual
interviews
•3 children filmed using ‘Club Penguin’ in the
home over a period of one month
•Ethnographic study conducted over two years in 2
primary schools in London and Sheffield
•Children were co-researchers
•Interviews, videos, annotated maps, sociograms,
online survey of media use

5. Lubna, aged 3 Farooq, aged 2

6. Grace, aged 4 Sohail, aged 2

7. Play, Creativity and Digital
Cultures
• Singing, dancing, talking to/ in front of TV/ films on own or with
friends and family
• Using an electronic toy on own or with siblings and parents (e.g.
Arabic script toy, matching words and images)
• Using mobile phone to talk to imaginary person
• Using mobile phone to talk to family members - language play
• Using laptop on own or with siblings and family members to use
programs or watch Youtube

8. Play, Creativity and Digital
Cultures
• Using games console, generally with siblings
• Using digital camcorder and camera to record family activities
• Using CD/ MP3 player, dancing to music
• Using mobile phone to take photographs and videos
of family members
• Playing on phone apps
• Using mobile phone to engage in video calls

9. Purposes for literacy in the home (Teale, 1986)
• School-related activity (e.g. homework, forms and letters from
school, playing school)
• Daily living routines (e.g. maintaining the social organisation of
the family, shopping, cooking, paying bills)
• Work (e.g. related to family employment)
• Participating in ‘information networks’ (e.g. to find out what was
happening in areas of interest e.g. reading sports pages of
newspapers)
• Religion (e.g. reading holy books)
• Literacy for the sake of teaching/ learning literacy (e.g.phonics/
phonological awareness activities using books)
• Interpersonal communication (e.g. letters, birthday cards)
• Entertainment (e.g. reading books, comics)
• Storybook time (adult-child reading of picture books)
(Teale, 1986)

10. Purposes for digital literacy in the home
• Daily living routines (e.g. emails; ebay; online
supermarket sites)
• Work (e.g. word processing; emails)
• Participating in ‘information networks’ (e.g. chat forums;
Facebook)
• Religion (e.g. online religious communities)
• Literacy for the sake of teaching/ learning literacy (e.g.
tablet apps based on phonics).
• Interpersonal communication (e.g. emails; text
messages)
• Entertainment (e.g. console games; electronic books;
websites)
• Storybook time (electronic books)

12. CBeebies: Everything’s rosie

13. TRANSMEDIA INTERTEXTUALITY (KINDER, 1991)

14. 1928
1930s...

17. New Media Assemblages
While an ecological framing looks to find a contributory role for all
components, an assemblage has room for tension, mismatch and ongoing
reconfiguration. There is not sense of creating and then maintaining a
balanced symbiosis of parts. As a result of this heterogeneity and
independence, assemblages dismantle and reassemble in different
combinations as context and requirements shift.
! ! ! ! ! ! (Carrington, in press)

18. 3 current UK
trends: 5-11 year-olds’
favourite
Internet sites
n = 180

19. YouTube

20. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4CV9LebIa8

21. Facebook

22. Yes No
% of 5 - 8 year olds
who had used
Facebook (n =73)
47%
53%

23. Yes No
% of 5 - 8 year olds
who had their own
Facebook/
myspace page
30% (n =77)
70%

24. Jackie: OK. So when you go on it, what are the things that you do when
you go on it?
Kate: You can play games, like there’s lots of stuff to do like pets and stuff,
there’s a game called Happy Pets, Pet Society, Petville, and then there’s
something called Cityville, like you can make your own city, and there’s
Farmville.
Jackie: And do you play on all of those games?
Kate: Yeah.
Jackie: Do you send people messages?
Kate: Yeah.
Jackie: And what sort of messages do you send?
Kate: We just say “hiya” and we start like a normal conversation as if we
were talking to each other.

25. Virtual
Worlds

26. Commercial VWs for children
• Persistent space that offers a range of
environments that are navigable through
maps
• Customisable avatar
• Home for avatar
• Free chat and safe-chat servers
• Games which earn in-world currency,
generally played individually
• In-world goods that can be purchased
• Moderators
• Information for parents on website

30. Genres of Play
Fantasy play
Games with rules
‘Rough and tumble’
play
Socio-dramatic play

31. Owen: I go on YouTube sometimes and
they have like little presentations on..it’s
funny because it’s like the funniest clips of
Club Penguin and stuff and they fall and
stuff.
Stacey: You can type ‘Club Penguin’ and
it comes up and there’ll be like and there’s
music in the background and it can show
you slideshows.

32. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK3Uo_-auLU

35. Class 2 Offline Online
I (G)
A (B) O (G)
R (B)
J (B)
N (G)
B (G) M (B)
J (B)
G (G)
L (B)
C (B)
G (G)
J (B) B (B)
T (B)
B (B)
J (B)
B (B)
H (B)
L (G)
L (G)
C (B) T (B)
A (G)
K (B)
K (B)

36. Augmented reality
Text
Apptivity - Hot Wheels

37. Disney Dream Play

38. Mobile Devices
52% of 0-8 year-olds
had access to
mobile device such
as smartphone/
ipod or ipad; 38%
of 0-8 year olds
used them
(Common Sense
Media, 2011)

39. App Gap? (Common Sense Media,
2011)
47% v 14%

40. OFCOM, 2012

41. Play, Creativity and Digital Cultures in
Homes and Communities
• Many young children’s play and creativity shaped by
‘new media assemblages’
• Play and creative activities take place across online/
offline spaces and two becoming more merged in
play
• Peer-to-peer fandom growing but it is still a minority of
children who create and post online texts
• Danger of digital divide being exacerbated by
developments

42. Play, Creativity and Digital Culture in
Early Years Settings and Schools
Digital Futures in Teacher Education
Project
http://www.digitalfutures.org/

43. Aims of project: To involve pre- and in-service
teachers, teacher educators and pupils in:
• Exploring and sharing the potential of digital
technologies
• Understanding more about what it means to be
digitally literate
• Sharing and developing good practice in teaching
through development of open educational resources
(OERs)

44. 44
Nursery Using mobile apps, including iPads, for digital storytelling
Using Scratch to create and animate digital monsters; using Web
Primary school 1
2.0 sites for monster theme creativity
Primary school 2 Visual arts and the digital - using the app Brushes on iPads
Primary school 3 Camp Cardboard - digital arts and drama
Primary school 4 Using QR codes and geocaching in local park
Special school Creating films to enhance communication skills
Secondary school 1 Developing a school VLE
Secondary school 2 Using OERs to share good practice
Secondary school 3 21st century ‘show and tell’ using video and screencast
Secondary school 4 Using QR codes with local science museum, Magna Centre
http://www.digitalfutures.org/

53. http://www.digitalfutures.org/

54. PLAYFUL AND CREATIVE
PEDAGOGIES
Flexible learning spaces Digital play
Cultural relevance Multimodal, multimedia
production/ design
Participatory practices

55. Digital Play
• Allowing children time
to explore modes and
media and understand
their affordances
• Play as a central
concept
• Teachers taking a
facilitative/ supporting
rather than leading
role

56. Multimodal Production and
Design
Children:
• Developing appropriate
technical skills
• Choosing appropriate modes
and media for purpose
• Developing skills across modes
and media e.g. ability to insert
animations into texts,
understand issues relating to
layout
• Developing critical skills e.g.
ability to review and critically
analyse texts

57. Participatory Practices
• Social constructionist/
communities of practice
models of learning
• Children learning to work
effectively with others
• Children learning how to
manage complexities of
distributed knowledge
• Intergenerational learning

58. Cultural Relevance
• Projects embedded children’s
own out-of-school knowledge
and understanding into
activities e.g. use of
smartphones
• Popular culture important in
some projects e.g. monster
films
• Links to community interests
and needs e.g. QR codes in
local park/ museum

59. Flexible Learning Spaces
• Moving outside of the
classroom space when
necessary
• Blending online and offline
• Pupils able to work in flexible
ways e.g. individually, dyads,
groups
• Control and choice important

60. Future Developments
• Increased use of
wearable devices to
get online e.g.
watches, glasses
• Online/ offline play
more integrated
• Personalisation of
robots in play

61. Conclusion
• Many children living increasingly complex digital lives, active
with a range of media from an early age - we need to identify
and map skills and knowledge
• Essential for early years schools and settings to build on these
early experiences, especially for children who do not have
digital access at home or in the community
• We need further research on young children’s digital/ media
literacy practices e.g. longitudinal studies, comparative
studies, online/ offline tracking
• Future developments will lead to an increasing blend of
online/ offline spaces in children’s out-of-school lives - are
formal learning spaces equipped to build on these
developments?

62. http://www.bl.uk/playtimes