Family Engagement in the Digital Age

Early Childhood Educators as Media Mentors

Chip Donohue, Chip Donohue

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317328841
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Pedagogía
• Categoría: Educación primaria

Family Engagement in the Digital Age: Early Childhood Educators as Media Mentors explores how technology can empower and engage parents, caregivers and families, and the emerging role of media mentors who guide young children and their families in the 21st century. This thought-provoking guide to innovative approaches to family engagement includes Spotlight on Engagement case studies, success stories, best practices, helpful hints for media mentors, and "learn more" resources woven into each chapter to connect the dots between child development, early learning, developmentally appropriate practice, family engagement, media mentorship and digital age technology. In addition, the book is driven by a set of best practices for teaching with technology in early childhood education that are based on the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and Fred Rogers Center joint position statement on Technology and Interactive Media.

Please visit the Companion Website at http://teccenter.erikson.edu/family-engagement-in-the-digital-age

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Part I
Technology, Young Children, and Family Engagement

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Editor’s Introduction

This book, and the chapters in Part I, set the stage for all that will follow. You are introduced to the concept of media mentors and the role of diversity and will begin to identify the active ingredients in technology-mediated family engagement. You will explore the connections between what we know about the effective, appropriate, and intentional use of technology and digital media in the early years and the role of technology innovation in digital age family engagement.

Part I begins with three short essays. In the first, Lisa Guernsey writes about who media mentors are, why they are essential in the digital age, and what it will take to prepare early childhood educators for media mentorship. Next, Kevin Clark explores issues of diversity in media and why educators need to be mindful of diversity when designing and delivering technology-mediated approaches to family engagement. I briefly step outside of my role as editor for the third essay that connects the dots between family engagement and technology and creates a context for the discussion of innovative and effective technology-mediated strategies to engage families based on what we know about technology and digital media in the early years.

In Chapter 2, Sharon Thompson Hirschy introduces her framework for developmentally appropriate technology integration—a new way of thinking that connects the developmentally appropriate practices framework to the section, use, integration, and evaluation of technology in early childhood classrooms and other settings. She discusses why technology integration in early childhood environments is essential to effective, appropriate, and intentional use of technology and digital media with young children. The role of media mentors, implications for teacher preparation and professional development, and strategies for using the framework to develop and deliver technology-meditated family engagement approaches that facilitate communication and interaction are presented.

Jeremy Boyle, Melissa Butler, and Junlei Li share new ways of thinking about children’s experiences with technology and explore why children need to engage more deeply with technology in Chapter 3. They offer an approach to technology use in the early years that enables young children to experience technology and innovation by moving children from being users and consumers of technology to being creators. They provide gentle but persuasive nudges to early childhood educators about re-imagining children’s engagement with technology and offer strategies for media mentors including rethinking materials; providing access to thinking; growing habits that make thinking possible; and slowing down.

Chapter 4 introduces the work of the Harvard Family Research Project (HFRP) as a partner in the development of the Head Start National Center on Parent, Family, and Community Engagement (PFCE). M. Elena Lopez, Margaret Caspe, and Heather Weiss present a systems approach to family engagement, introduce the elements of the PFCE Framework, and identify promising practices and innovative approach to technology-mediated family engagement. They connect the Framework with the potential of digital media to support positive family outcomes in a strengths-based, parent empowerment

Part I closes with strategies for empowering parents and families from Rafiq Dossani and Anamarie Auger of the RAND Corporation. They introduce the concept of behavioral “nudges” and describe the power of a nudge to influence behavior and the potential of technology tools to provide empowering messages, information, and encouragement to parents and families when and where they need it. They review research on interactions between educators and parents as a key dimension of parental involvement, and the impact of parent engagement programs on children’s achievement and parenting practices, and they identify innovative programs that use technology-mediated nudges. The chapter, and Part I, end with tips for media mentors about leveraging technology tools to provide nudges as effective strategies for strengthening home–school communication and connections and deepening family engagement.

Chapter 1
Three Perspectives on Family Engagement

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Why Media Mentorship Matters: Equity in the Twenty-First Century

Lisa Guernsey

Technology Tools for Family Engagement: The Role of Diversity

Kevin Clark

Why Family Engagement, and Media Mentors Matter

Chip Donohue

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WHY MEDIA MENTORSHIP MATTERS: EQUITY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

Lisa Guernsey

It’s a Saturday morning in March, and the room at the government center in Fairfax, Virginia, is packed but quiet. Rachel C. Martin, a child care specialist, is standing at the front. Behind her is a large screen that projects images of children’s books and games.Emerging Literacy: Digital Storytime.

In front of her are dozens of child care providers and early educators, many of whom manage very small programs in their homes. They serve low-income families across northern Virginia, an area that, like much of the United States, has a teeming population of immigrants from all over the globe and struggles with vast disparities in income levels. Many of their families qualify for subsidized housing and nutrition assistance. At least half the women here this morning are immigrants themselves, hailing from Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East.

These faces reflect an untapped opportunity to embrace, teach, and lift up America’s next generation. In a country with more than 20 percent of U.S. children in poverty, with the same percentage of children being raised by parents who speak non-English languages, and with technological advances reshaping the lives of families and kids every day, the work of these child care providers matters immensely. Exactly how these adults interact with the children in their care, the way they advise the children’s parents and family members, and their ability to mold new mindsets around learning and literacy will have cascading effects that set the course for the America of the twenty-first century.

But at this moment—at 10:37 a.m., as a few people are still straggling in to grab plastic chairs in the back of the room—the long-term significance of their work takes a backseat to day-to-day struggles in running a child care program, not to mention scarcity of tools and training in general. To many, digital technology feels like a pipe dream or, worse, a distraction. Before the session started, a few participants leaned into whispered conversations about the challenges of using touchscreens with kids. As Martin speaks, some still have eyebrows raised in skepticism.

“Don’t worry,” Martin says as she welcomes her audience, “I was nervous about using technology at first too.” But she invites everyone to explore: How might electronic books spark a range of early literacy activities with young children? Could they prompt new ways of reaching the preschoolers in your care?

Martin opens up a website called Unite for Literacy. Let’s look at this, she says. Here are books in multiple languages.

The child care providers suddenly perk up. Multiple languages? Really? Which ones?

Soon, several members of the audience are raising their hands, asking questions about the e-book app and what it can do. Martin flips through a book on owls, which is narrated in Farsi. Here’s one about insects, in Vietnamese. And it’s free, Martin tells them. The founders of Unite for Literacy are funding this through donations. But Martin is not here to pitch apps; instead, she wants her audience to review and think critically about different types of media. For example, with Unite for Literacy, she says, the print on the pages is not in the same language as the narrated language. When you are showing kids these books, she counsels, you’ll want to be thoughtful about the ages of the children and how they are learning print.

Scenes like this one are starting to play out in a few spots around the country. The Association for Library Services to Children has encouraged librarians who work in youth services to rise to the challenge and provide workshops on new media and technology for parents and early educators. As this book in your hands makes clear, an impassioned cadre of thought leaders—from the National Association for the Education of Young Children to the TEC Center at Erikson Institute and more—are calling for people across the early childhood landscape to recognize the need for media mentors for parents and families as well as for members of the early childhood profession themselves, whether they be teacher-education faculty or social workers in home-visiting programs.

One of her recent endeavors is to show public school teachers and leaders how to use Skype to conduct virtual field trips to places such as Yellowstone National Park, enabling children to talk with park rangers and ask questions about sites they may not otherwise have a chance to visit. For children in preschool environments, she has encouraged the use of remote video technology to engage children in nursery rhymes or songs performed by “special guests,” such as parents who call in from their workplace or relatives who live far away.

In short, her role is not to work directly with families or children but instead to bring tools and strategies to early childhood professionals who may use new literacy and language-development tools in their classrooms and who want to relay the information to families through parenting workshops or other events.

“The idea,” Martin says, “is that we can facilitate events through their center, helping them to plan.” Ultimately, she said, this can “help parents to understand how teachers use technology with their children and also how to use it at home.”

Most American children and their families are now consuming and playing with digital media and video stories (think TV) for several hours every day. Hundreds of thousands of children’s apps are in the marketplace. New online software and electronic books come online every month. Figuring out how to manage, curate, and smartly use all of these materials is a huge challenge for today’s educators and parents. Adults who work with children will increasingly need moments to talk with experts, examine and reflect upon new tools, and figure out how to customize their use of different kinds of media (print included) to help those children develop.

As Michael H. Levine and I write in Tap, Click, Read:

We cannot afford to ignore the affordances of technology, especially for disadvantaged children and families of many different backgrounds who may not otherwise have access to information and learning opportunities. And yet to leave the fate of these children to technology alone would be a big mistake.

Studies conducted in libraries, in schools, and in homes show just how much of a difference an adult can make for a child when that adult engages with kids around technology and media in ways that scaffold learning. Today’s young children who are using technology to learn and createwhile working with adults who can set good examples and guide them to new heights are receiving tremendous advantages. If only the privileged few have the opportunity for that kind of tech-assisted but human-powered learning, divides will only grow wider.

As Martin’s session ends on that morning in Fairfax, many early educators are lingering over e-book devices that Martin has passed around for demonstrations. Others chat about downloading apps to their smartphones without having to purchase expens...

Índice

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Contributors
• Foreword: Ellen Galinsky
• Preface
• Spotlight on Engagement Profiles
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations and Acronyms
• Introduction
• Part I Technology, Young Children, and Family Engagement
• Part II Technology Tools and Techniques for Empowering Educators and Families
• Part III Innovative Approaches to Technology-Enhanced Family Engagement
• Index