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Technology education in early childhood education (ECE) has only recently been established internationally as a curriculum content area. The interdisciplinary character of technology education and its status as a field under development occasion a need to distinguish and define technology in the merging of disciplines. This literature review presents an overview of technology education in ECE in recent empirical studies. The literature review was carried out systematically, resulting in 23 studies that were scrutinised to present an overall picture regarding study design, findings and how technology is characterised. The analysis of the nature of technology in the reviewed studies builds on DiGironimo's (Int J Sci Education, 33(10):1337-1352. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2010.495400, 2011) conceptual framework, representing five distinct but merging dimensions of an ever-changing human technological creation process. In the synthesised findings, four subthemes derived from the studies' overall themes were identified: two focusing on preschool teachers and pre-service teachers, and two focusing on technology activities with children. The aligned outcomes are discussed concerning the conceptual dimensions of technology, along with possibilities, challenges and implications for the current field of research on technology education in ECE.

The international trend of positioning the preschool as a pre-academic learning environment is challenging for preschool teachers, as it necessitates a balance between emotionally supportive interaction and goal-oriented learning instruction. However, previous research suggests that the complexities of such interactions need to be further studied. This article contributes by presenting a very detailed exploration of how social adaptation is pursued in a goal-oriented documentation activity. The study used a micro-sociological approach, characterized by the careful analysis of verbal and nonverbal interactions. Two research questions were raised: (1) How is social adaptation pursued in verbal and nonverbal interactions in preschool teacher-child relationships during a goal-oriented activity? and (2) How can social adaptation in the preschool context be understood in terms of a "deference-emotion system"? Interactions between a teacher and child in two video-recorded episodes were transcribed and sequentially analyzed thoroughly. The findings suggest that the interactions were regulated through an informal system of social sanctions, in which nonverbal signs of deference played a key role. The interaction was shown to be embedded in an institutional context that advocates goal-oriented instruction, thus highlighting the challenge of preschool teaching in attempting to promote goal-oriented processes while simultaneously maintaining respectful, caring teacher-child relationships.

Integrating digital technology in education is challenging. This study reports on three high school mathematics classes where teachers attempted to improve their teaching and student learning by using a digital tool. For analysis we use the Information System Artifact model Lee et al. (2015) which distinguishes between three integrated sub-artifacts, the technological, the informational and the social and the Structurational Practice Lens to educational technology Halperin (2017). Using interviews and observations we find the major obstacle for student learning is a less developed social artifact. Students have difficulties using the tool effectively when teachers do not work to develop shared practices in technology use. When teachers do not themselves use the tool actively, they do not fully understand how students can learn from it, neither can they help them in synthesizing teacher- and tool instructions. Students end up having "two masters" competing rather than integrated teacher instruction and technology assistance.

Digitalizing school is a process that comes with challenges. It requires strategic leadership and transformational change to work processes. Nevertheless, some succeed, and it is useful to understand what makes for success. This paper studies the challenges of leading digitalization of education in a city which decided to implement an IT-supported method for teaching literacy in primary schools. The method required transformational change; teachers not only had to learn to use technologies, they also had to review their pedagogy. This study is guided by the Diffusion of Innovation theory and draws on interviews with school principals. We find that the critical factors relate to the communication channel, the social system within and across schools, and the time perspective.

Early childhood education (ECE) presupposes a balance between emotionally supportive interaction and pre-academic teaching instruction, and research indicates an increasing pressure on preschool teachers' communicative competence. This study focuses on the functions of emotions in the teacher-child relationship in a situated context. Such studies are scarce in the research on ECE, which mainly concerns children's socioemotional learning. Using a micro-sociological approach, characterized by an in-depth analysis of interaction, we explore the ways in which emotions may foster conformity in goal-oriented preschool activities. Verbal and nonverbal utterances between a preschool teacher and a child in a video-recorded episode were transcribed and analyzed meticulously. The findings reveal an informal, subtle system of social sanctions within which the emotions of shame and pride have important functions, which leads to social adaptation to goal-oriented expectations. The study also discusses how emotional processes during interaction can be understood in light of the institutional context of current ECE.

Educational research has increasingly drawn attention to teachers' professional digital competence.Various theoretical and methodological perspectives involving a plethora of terms are used to investigate teachers' competences in relation to technology-based teaching. The concept of teachers' professional digital competence still appears to be ambiguous and elusive. This literature overview aims to scrutinise "if", and "how" the concepts addressing teachers' professional digital competence are defined or conceptualised in research. In the publications retrieved from the search in educational databases, we found that the concept of teachers' professional digital competence, or related concepts, was frequently mentioned in abstracts, keywords and full texts, but to a large extent, it was rarely described in detail. In our final corpus of 18 publications, we could distinguish seven recurring aspects of teachers' professional digital competence; 1) "technological competence," 2) "content knowledge," 3) "attitudes to technology use," 4) "pedagogical competence," 5) "cultural awareness," 6) "critical approach" and 7) "professional engagement," with the technological and pedagogical competences as the most prominent. Inspired by Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory, these aspects are analysed as operating within microsystems of individual teachers and within meso- and macrosystems of interactive teachers in interplay with the situated classroom contexts and on larger societal systems.

This study explores preschool teachers' considerations regarding their work with curriculum content areas and examines possible relationships with their professional competence and group size. Drawing on Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory and mixed-methods analytical procedure, this study analyzes 698 preschool teachers' considerations on a set of 12 curriculum content areas. The results revealed reading and writing as the two least emphasized content areas. No significant relationship was found among preschool teachers' ratings of these content areas, their professional background, and group size. Prominent in preschool teachers' reasoning for rating reading and writing as least emphasized, is a child-directed approach implying that these content areas are not involved in their professional assignment and therefore included merely as a response to children's specific displayed interest. Implications for the content of early education programs and continuing professional development models are discussed.

The neurological basis for perceptual awareness remains unclear, and theories disagree as to whether sensory cortices per se generate awareness. Critically, neural activity in the sensory cortices is only a neural correlate of consciousness (NCC) if it closely matches the contents of perceptual awareness. Research in vision and touch suggest that contralateral activity in sensory cortices is an NCC. Similarly, research in hearing with two sound sources (left and right) presented over headphones also suggests that a candidate NCC called the auditory awareness negativity (AAN) matches perceived location of sound. The current study used 13 different sound sources presented over loudspeakers for natural localization cues and measured event‐related potentials to a threshold stimulus in a sound localization task. Preregistered Bayesian mixed models provided moderate evidence against an overall AAN and very strong evidence against its lateralization. Because of issues regarding data quantity and quality, exploratory analyses with aggregated data from multiple loudspeakers were conducted. Results provided moderate evidence for an overall AAN and strong evidence against its lateralization. Nonetheless, the interpretations of these results remain inconclusive. Therefore, future research should reduce the number of conditions and/or test over several sessions to procure a sufficient amount of data. Taken at face value, the results may suggest issues with AAN as an NCC of auditory awareness, as it does not laterally map onto experiences in a free‐field auditory environment, in contrast to the NCCs of vision and touch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in the introduction of programming in teacher education and professional development, highlighting its importance for the development of so-called computational thinking. This study explored primary education teachers' participation in programming practices. By focusing on their views of creating a computational artefact with Scratch, the difficulties encountered, and resources to overcome them in the context of a professional development effort in computer science at the primary education level, was analysed. Employing Thematic Analysis, 17 group documentations (drafts, Scratch projects and final reports) were examined. Findings revealed that projects that had educational content involved more elaborate descriptions, while recreational projects presented a shorter and less elaborate account of the programming process. In terms of difficulties, teachers described initial concerns regarding how to achieve what they had planned, imagined or expected, and they expressed difficulties related to the edition of imported images for objects and scenarios and related to the block-based programming practices. Participants resorted to a great variety of resources to overcome them, which highlights the importance of making testing and debugging practices more explicit. These findings could be relevant for the design of future learning scenarios, highlighting the importance of providing opportunities to develop a critical approach towards expressed commercial promises as well as opportunities to challenge the rhetoric of computational thinking.

Aim/Purpose: The aim of this study is to investigate posts that deviate from the norm by receiving many more comments than likes in a teacher thematic Facebook (FB) group. Background: Social media sites are currently becoming standard tools for professional practices. Swedish teachers use thematic FB groups as a platform for professional learning. Methodology: Data from a large teacher FB group over a three-year period have been collected using programmatic approaches. The interactions have been analysed through a three-phased process: (1) meta-data selection criteria and computational analysis to identify in-depth discussions, (2) content selection criteria, and (3) interaction analysis of selected threads. Contribution: FB discussions provide a platform for teachers for sharing resources and for emotional and professional support. The support and sharing do not merely constitute explicit requests, but also bring about professional discussions. Findings: The 79 original posts that significantly deviated from the norm of the group, were formulated as questions and/or requests, which implies that they were designed to attract comments and not only likes. The original posts were organized around four themes: (1a) functionally motivated technical features, (1b) instructionally motivated technical features, (2) pedagogical ideas and premises, and (3) sharing. The nature of these unusual threads was that teachers used the thematic FB-group to share teaching material and resources as well as to give and receive emotional and professional support. Such sharing and support meant a transformation from working in isolation to finding a professional community. In the discussion threads the teachers displayed a variety of identities, such as active and engaged teacher, a thematic expert, or a central group member. Recommendations for Practitioners: In terms of practical implications, teachers' competencies towards using social media platforms for collective and constructive discussions need to be strengthened. The challenge is to promote more teachers to partake in challenging such group norms in such groups so that discussions characterised by openness, debate, and constructive criticism are established. Recommendations for Researchers: It is vital to empirically investigate teachers' online interactions as new types of collegial discussions that, while rich, could be seen as valuable even if they are unpredictable compared to well-established professional learning efforts. Impact on Society: This study contributes with knowledge about the impacts of social media platforms as becoming standard tools for all human activities, let alone professional practices. Future Research: Additional detailed analysis of teachers' use of social media platforms for professional purposes are needed as well as methodological competence development with regard to computational approaches such as those employed in this study.

The roles of self-regulation and structuration in mobile learning are poorly understood. This study therefore examines these aspects in relation to the design and use of mobile technology in an online language learning setting. The online self-regulated learning (SRL) instrument was adopted to measure students' perceived level of self-regulation. Structuration Theory was applied as the theoretical lens for understanding students' technology-mediated learning practices. The results show that several factors defining learners' level of self-regulation were correlated with their mode of structuration. The analysis indicates that students' SRL characteristics are correlated with their structures regarding their technologies-in-practice and their practical assumptions about effectiveness in learning. An implication for practice is that students' SRL dimensions need to be taken into account when designing educational software for mobile technology. For research, this study has demonstrated the explanatory power of ST and how students' structures are related to their SRL characteristics.

The aim of this study is to gain insights into students' language use on social media as part of the specific linguistic activities of second language (L2) learning, including development of sociopragmatic competence. Two Facebook groups were introduced in different English-as-L2 classes that were part of an international collaborative project comprising secondary schools in Colombia, Finland, Sweden and Taiwan. The study is theoretically grounded in sociocultural perspectives on learning, and the methods involve logging the students' linguistic interactions in the social media groups. The analysis of the empirical material explored how the students framed the activities by different types of keying in their choice of linguistic repertoires. The findings show that the social media context offered a casual space for communication in which the students, by attentively attuning to the local coordinated framing, used diverse linguistic repertoires to play with the language. In instances of upkeyed framings, the language play was not only used with pragmatic intentions, but also as a means for various socializing purposes. In conclusion, it is suggested that language play on social media can be seen as a valuable activity in developing sociopragmatic competence to prepare students for L2 use outside of school.

This study explores what opportunities for critical literacy work that can be distinguished in the practices of an emerging digitalised classroom and how teachers and students make use of these. Observations were conducted over the course of one semester in three subjects in a Swedish class of 13-14-year olds using individual tablets. The findings presented as thick descriptions suggest that different kinds of opportunities to develop critical literacy evolve in various activities and digital technologies become a resource in students' work. However, these opportunities mainly occur in peer interactions outside the visible control of the teacher and never develop into further critical reflections. The study concludes that a deliberate emphasis on critical literacy work in the design of tasks, especially those that include digital technologies, creates opportunities for students to develop competences that support them in becoming confident users and producers of contemporary texts.

A multitude of different technologies are used in school today. Some are provided by the school and others are brought by the individual teacher or student. In addition, different applications are available. In this study the focus is on student-initiated uses of technology and how it conditions learning. Based on a case study with surveys, interviews and an observational time study, it is shown that students appear to be the most frequent users of technology in the classroom and for the most part initiate its use. We also show that they often initiate uses directed towards communication and inquiry. Against the prevailing understanding that students mainly use technology for extra-curricular activities, we found that most of the student-initiated technology and applications related to the task in hand and were therefore not regarded as problematic by teachers or students. However, with regard to student-initiated uses of social media, games and communicative applications the picture is more diverse. In this context, teachers and students complain that such use may distract students, although some regard it as rewarding, for example due to the informal learning or time for contemplation and relaxation that results. We conclude by questioning the dichotomies of curricular-non-curricular and intended-unintended learning and we argue for the need to add contemplation to the taxonomy used for understanding the educational use of information technologies as conditions for learning.

There is a misconception that pictures are easy to comprehend, which is problematic in pedagogical practices that include pictures. For example, if a child has difficulties with verbal narration to picture sequences, it may be interpreted as specific to spoken language even though the child may have additional difficulties with comprehension of visual narratives in the form of picture sequences. The purpose of the present study was therefore to increase our understanding of semantic processing in the pictorial domain in relation to semantic processing in the verbal domain, focusing on 9-13 years-old children with typical language development. To this end, we measured electrical brain responses (event related potentials, ERPs) in 17 children to (i) pictures (panels) that were predicted versus unpredicted in sequences of panels that conveyed visual narratives and (ii) words that were predicted versus unpredicted in sentences that conveyed verbal narratives. Results demonstrated similarities as there were no significant difference in the magnitude of the N400 effect across domains. The only difference between domains was the predicted difference in distribution, that is, a more posterior N400 effect in the verbal domain than in the pictorial domain. The study contributes to an increased understanding of the complexity of processing of visual narratives and its shared features with processing of verbal narratives, which should be considered in pedagogical practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digitalizing school is a process that comes with challenges. It requires strategic leadership and transformational change to work processes. Nevertheless, some succeed, and it is useful to understand what makes for success. This paper studies the challenges of leading digitalization of education in a city which decided to implement an IT-supported method for teaching literacy in primary schools. The method required transformational change; teachers not only had to learn to use technologies, they also had to review their pedagogy. This study is guided by the Diffusion of Innovation theory and draws on interviews with school principals. We find that the critical factors relate to the communication channel, the social system within and across schools, and the time perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the authors explored how laptops used in 1:1 classrooms affect cooperation and collaboration practices. Based on an observational time study, the authors found that the most common activity in 1:1 classrooms is group work using the computer. They also found that, despite what the concept 1:1 alludes to about one student working with one computer, most laptop use takes on other forms such as two students working with one computer (1:2) or two students working together using two laptops (2:2). The findings reported in this article about the various different collaboration arrangements have implications for both research and practice. For practice, because teachers can arrange activities based on an awareness of the different student--laptop constellations that emerge when students are given a laptop. Research is likewise informed about the various group work constellations and can build on this knowledge for further analysis of the pros and cons with the different collaborative forms.

Since reading and writing digitally demand partially different competencies, there is a change in some of the premises of related educational practices. This study aims to contribute to the knowledge of educational reading practices by scrutinizing how literacy events evolve in a digital classroom where each student has a personal digital device (1:1), iPads in this study. Our study is grounded in sociocultural theories of learning and focuses on the structuring resources utilized by students, namely the notion of multiple ongoing activities and the ways in which specific resources take precedence in shaping these activities. One class of 13-14 year-old students was studied for a week across several subjects through video-recordings and observations. The findings imply that the students moved among vast array of reading practices. However, the main structuring resource is a strong focus on task-solving and the practice of schooling, which mainly builds on principles emanating from traditional text. It is only occasionally that structuring resources that also include the opportunities associated with digital technology are utilized. This indicates the importance of further studies on how educational practices could be organized to scaffold the basis of traditional reading comprehension as well as other approaches required in digital environments.

To prepare emergency response organisations for collaborative work in unpredictable and dynamic situations, various types of exercises are widely used. Still, our knowledge of collaboration exercises with emergency response students is limited. This study aimed to contribute to this field by exploring boundaries that emerged between collaborating organisations in exercise activities and how these boundaries could be understood for learning. Drawing on the Akkerman and Bakker framework of boundaries as learning mechanisms, this study explored an exercise, including full-scale scenarios and seminars with students from the police, ambulance and rescue services education in Sweden. Thematic analysis of interviews and observations illustrated boundaries that emerged regarding vocabulary, prioritisation, roles, knowledge gaps and overlapping responsibilities across organisations. Rather than dissolving boundaries, this article suggests that boundaries can be utilised in exercises to support the students to contextualise their knowledge in relation to the demands of collaborative work. The concepts boundary work and boundary awareness were suggested to capture more generally the dynamics of learning in exercise contexts.

This case study explores how Swedish upper secondary students communicate in English as part of second language learning, in a blog shared with Thai students. Grounded in a sociocultural perspective on learning, the notions of Goffman's "frame shifting" and Bakhtin's concept of "carnival" are employed to analyse two specific students' negotiations and co-construction of postings in relation to authorship and audience. The findings show that when encountering a task introduced as part of schooling but contextualized in social media, the two students struggle to come to grips with how to frame the task. Initially, they frame the activity in relation to what counts as conventional language-learning practices but shift framing as they discover that other classmates' postings are framed more in line with social media contexts, distinguished by a carnivalesque spontaneous writing. Thus, for the two specific students who author the postings, the local audience consisting of their classmates plays the most significant role.