Engl. transl.: Digital World of Children at Early School Age

"The book Digital World of Children at Early School Age shows how children of early school age are surrounded by new technologies. This is presented from the point of view of both the children themselves and adults. Children grow up with media, and using them permeates all aspects of their lives, changing how they play, learn and communicate with each other. Children’s use of media has always aroused many emotions, but discussions around this topic are full of generalizations, simplifications and theorizing, not supported by empirical research. The publications appearing in this topic mostly concern teenagers or adults, as relatively little research covers children at an early school age. The assumption is that this book is to fill a gap in the literature on this topic, because it shows, from the perspective of children, the way they function in the digital world. By allowing children to take the lead in in-depth-interviews, the author familiarized herself with the ranking they give to individual media and the activities using them; she also listened to how they assess their digital competences, which ones they consider to be particularly important and which are less important. Moreover, she learned their opinions on communicating by means of new technologies or their perception of family activities in the field of home media education. The book also describes educational digital tools that can help children enjoy long-term benefits. In order to meet the condition of objectivity, as well as children, the perspectives of digital experts and teachers of early childhood education are presented, as these are people through whom such benefits are possible. In comprehensive interviews, these experts in the field of education discussed the importance of a skillful and prudent introduction of digital media into children’s world, especially through activities in the school environment. These expert accounts are completed by quantitative data obtained with the help of a diagnostic survey of early childhood education teachers who, unlike experts, have lower digital competences, but who are obliged (by the new educational program law) to foster selected digital competences in children and introduce them to the digital world. However, it is qualitative research, and especially interviews with children, that constitute this publication’s special merit. They not only allow us to discover what the digital world of early school age children looks like, but also, according to the author, can help to revise our perception of childhood in this digital world." (Iwanicka, A. (2020). Cyfrowy świat dzieci we wczesnym wieku szkolnym. Uwarunkowania korzystania z nowych technologii przez dzieci. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM, p. 334).

1. Children emphasized that they have little support from their parents in the field of media education: parents rarely engage in digital activities with them, do not explain the world of the media to them, do not decode media messages, do not control what children in this world do. 2. Children feel lonely - parents do not spend time with them, do not show them what to do outside school, how to spend their free time. Children do not know what to use the media for, apart from entertainment - nobody has shown it to them at home - only at school do they have a chance to learn about digital tools and see that the media serves more than just entertainment 3. Children declare that they prefer communication without the participation of the media - they even indicate the disadvantages of communicating an intermediary. But even if they communicate without technology, their conversations largely relate to the digital world: computer games, instragrammers, youtubers. 4. Children: declared that there is basically no technology in the lessons. All schools banned the use of smartphones, which children saw as unfair because it often did not apply to teachers. The experts felt similar to the children - they were also opposed to the ban on using smartphones in schools, considering it as a result of teachers' low digital competences. Experts were advocating bringing smartphones to schools and using them in class. The teachers were of the opposite opinion: they were in favor of introducing restrictions. They openly declared that they were afraid of new technologies, they did not know what and how to use them in lessons, and that they were also afraid of what children do with them during breaks. 5. Children: they emphasize that coding is an opportunity for them to work with a friend, that they like these lessons because they are looser. This is a good opportunity to practice exploratory speech. The same was noticed by experts who mentioned a number of benefits of early learning to code, especially emphasizing the possibilities of developing social competences 6. Social competences were often invoked by experts in the context of introducing technology into lessons. They emphasized that the media did not impoverish peer contacts at all, on the contrary, thanks to the proper use of technology, the peer effect could occur - i.e. a situation in which peers strongly influenced the growth of students' knowledge. The teachers had a different opinion - they blamed the interpersonal problems of children on the media, blaming them for disturbances in peer relations. Experts explained the problems in social communication of children with low competences in this area in children's families. 7. Teachers do not know pedagogical concepts, they do not know how to properly introduce new technologies, they do not know why they should do it, they do it in an intuitive way, based on their gut feelings and experiences. However, they are interested in raising their competences in this area. (prepared by the author - Iwanicka A.)