Appar och agency: barns interaktion med pekplattor i förskolan.

The use of digital devices in Swedish ECEC centres has steadily increased within the last few years. This development has resulted in a number of altered conditions for children’s social and academic room for manoeuvre as the use of digital devices increases during the day-to-day activities at ECEC centres. With particular interest in the multimodal behavioural options and conditions that these devices offer, this study examines children's use of digital tablets in a Swedish ECEC setting. In connection with this, the study also focuses on tablets as a resource for minority language communication.

Based on the study's analyses, the researcher concludes that digital tablets hold several didactic potentials that are assumed to support children in the future in a complex and ever-changing society. The study also finds that children's behaviour - during activities with digital tablets - depends on their room for manoeuvre as created by their peers and the digital platform. In this instance, the children's agency seems to be activated when the options available to them comprise visual, auditive and physical communication signals. This can be exemplified by the software program Skype, which is a multimodal communication tool that can enhance children's possibilities and abilities to communicate in a minority language.

Based on the intention of collecting multimodal data material (video, sound and screen recordings), the study applies what the author refers to as a videoethnic approach, which makes it possible to focus on the children’s' bodily and communicative interactions with the digital tools. This can be exemplified by the combination of video and screen recordings, which provide a simultaneous insight into children's behaviour and the events that take place on the tablet's screen. The data material was collected in two Swedish municipalities, which both participated in large municipal tablet projects during data collection. A total of 103 children and 18 ECEC teachers participated in the study.

Petersen, P. (2015). Appar och agency: barns interaktion med pekplattor i förskolan. Institutionen för Pedagogik, Didaktik och Utbildningsstudier, Uppsala universitet.