Pupils creating digital animations in the early years of schooling

Research show that the use of computers and other digital tools such as tablets, smartboards and game consoles is rapidly becoming a reality in early-childhood educational settings and in the early years of schooling in Sweden. Thus, an important question is what potential digital tools and digital resources has to increase pupils’ meaning making when integrated into educational practices. Therefore, the aim of this project is to explore ‘what’s happening’ and ‘what’s possible” when pupils in small groups create digital animations together. The theoretical base for the project is Designs for Learning (DfL), according to which teaching, and learning are seen as a form of multimodal design: the teacher stages, or designs, learning activities, thus giving the pupils access to different resources that enable meaning making, and the pupils in turn re-design their learning based on their previous knowledge, interests and experiences. As part of the DfL framework, a model – Learning Design Sequence (LDS) – has been developed for teachers to use to plan and evaluate their teaching, and for researchers to use as an analytical tool in research studies.This project is carried out in three currently running studies in which the creation of digital animations when learning different subjects is studied, based on LDS. The chosen subjects are Swedish, Mathematics and Science. The project adheres to the ethical considerations regarding informed consent, anonymity, and the right to withdraw participation from the study without giving a reason. Data has been generated by filming when pupils create digital animations together. In one of the studies the pupils’ talk about their digital animations were also filmed. Thereby, fine-tune details of pupils’ multimodal interaction could be captured and analyzed. Also, pupils’ multimodal texts (writing, drawings, digital animations), teaching material and teachers’ lessons plans were collected. The results also indicate that the highest level of engagement, in terms of negotiating, ...