The Routledge International Handbook of Learning with Technology in Early Childhood by Kucirkova, N. Rowsell, J., & Falloon, G.

Julie Plows New Zealand Tertiary College

Book Reviews: Vol 7, No 1 - April 2022

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The Routledge International Handbook of Learning with Technology in Early Childhood is comprehensive and is clearly set out with four parts. Part one sets the scene for the book and contains three chapters. Part two has seven chapters with a focus on ontology. Part three comprises eight chapters focusing on epistemology. Part four is the largest, with 10 chapters highlighting practice-based discussion. Together, the 28 chapters discuss a range of useful topics for early childhood teachers, postgraduate students and education researchers.

While this book is heavily focused on children’s learning in connection with digital technology, there are far-reaching insights offered by the authors of the chapters from early years research projects. Studies that are reflectively discussed throughout include research about children’s play, ethnic diversity, social development, families’ use of social media apps such as WeChat, children’s interactions with digital devices at home, and touch-screen devices used for eBook reading.

Many theorists are noted by authors throughout the chapters which bring important underpinning concepts to their discussions. These include Rogoff, Deleuze, Guattari, Barad, Bruner, Taguchi, Vygotsky, and Bakhtin. Subjects within this book include: literacy, picture book reading, language, multilingualism, cultural diversity, cultural identities, visual arts, digital technologies, digital media, social media communication platforms, diverse needs, discourse analysis, visual research methods, arts-based methods, collecting data, qualitative research, ethnography and conducting analysis of data.

The three editors, Kucirkova, Rowsell and Falloon, state how they sought to provide insights and diverse perspectives in this publication, covering the ways children build multimodal literacy skills with digital technologies, such as iPads. In chapter two, Whitty and Rowsell discuss socio-economic issues of poverty and lack of digital resources. These authors give an example of a problematic situation where some children do not have access to an iPad whilst other children of the same age are busy developing technological skills.

The contributing authors of some of the chapters discuss educational research methodologies and methods. Various data collection methods are described in a way that would assist a beginner researcher to understand the processes. In chapter four, for example, Harwood and Collier share insights from their two-year study with children aged three to five years and their teachers. The detail they provide will be interesting to those who are considering ethnographic research. Children’s voices and parents’ voices are evident in many chapters bringing interesting data excerpts from the authors’ studies.

Authors have used figures well throughout to illustrate research findings and ideas about data analysis processes, such as in chapter seven, where Dixon and Janks discuss photographic documentation of children’s artwork and children’s writing samples. I was particularly interested in how researchers reflected on the use of research tools. For budding researchers, this book will help provide some scholarly foundational knowledge and practical considerations. I recommend The Routledge International Handbook of Learning with Technology in Early Childhood to early childhood teachers, postgraduate students and education researchers. This publication has depth, is complex, and readers will likely use the chapters’ headings to navigate it. The time invested in reading the book will be well worth it.

Reference

  • Kucirkova, N. Rowsell, J., & Falloon, G. (Eds.) (2019). The Routledge International Handbook of Learning with Technology in Early Childhood. Routledge.

How to cite this article

Plows, J. (2022, April 27). [Review of The Routledge international handbook of learning with technology in early childhood by Kucirkova, N. Rowsell, J., & Falloon, G.] He Kupu, 7(1), 68-69.