Complexity, pedagogy, play: On using technology within emergent learning structures with young learners

Authors

  • Linda Laidlaw University of Alberta
  • Suzanna Sohar Wong University of Alberta

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29173/cmplct24008

Abstract

This article presents and describes how we have used notions and structures informed by complexity thinking to shape new descriptions and approaches to understanding “new literacy” practices with young learners. Using data from two studies: a two year project working with kindergarten children using drama and digital tools to develop narrative, and the other an observational study of preschooler’s multiliteracy practices occurring in their home settings, we explore how notions from complexity can offer innovative frames for teaching and learning and options for thinking about pedagogy differently. Our classroom and home observations of children’s developing digital literacy practices suggest that using complexity-informed approaches to technology can include both theoretical orientation and practical possibilities for organizing classroom learning structures.

Author Biographies

Linda Laidlaw, University of Alberta

Linda Laidlaw is an associate professor in early literacy education at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. She works as a literacy researcher and teaches courses in undergraduate and graduate language and literacy education, curriculum studies, and research methodologies. Her current research focuses on digital literacies and multimodal practice for young learners, using complexity thinking as a theoretical and methodological frame. Her earlier 2005 book, Reinventing curriculum: A complex perspective on literacy and writing, provides a complexity thinking perspective, examining the writing practices of primary aged students.

 

 

Suzanna Sohar Wong, University of Alberta

Suzanna So-Har Wong is a Doctoral candidate at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, in the Department of Elementary Education Department. Her research focuses on preschoolers’ multiliteracy practices at home and their parents’ perspectives toward these practices, using complexity and an ecological approach as theoretical guides. She is particularly interested in young children’s early multiliteracy practices and how contemporary technology tools can be used to extend and influence early literacy learning processes and development. Her life-long passion is integrating literacies and technology tools with global, environmental, and outdoor education.

 

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Published

2016-05-18

Issue

Vol. 13 No. 1 (2016)

Section

Research Articles

License

© Copyright 2014. The author assigns to Complicity the University of Alberta and other educational and non-profit institutions a non-exclusive license to use this document for personal use and in courses of instruction provided that the article is used in full and this copyright statement is reproduced. The author also grants a non-exclusive license to the University of Alberta to publish this document in full on the World Wide Web, and for the document to be published on mirrors on the World Wide Web. Any other usage is prohibited without the express permission of the author.