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This paper contributes to the contemporary focus on literacy and digital stories in early childhood education and care (ECEC) institutions. When a group of young children create an animated story together, they might collaborate, both with their peers and with their teacher. By drawing on social semiotic multimodal perspectives as the theoretical framework, the purpose of this paper is to describe and explore how different modalities and narrative devices contribute to the development of an animated story created by six children (aged 4-5 years) and a teacher in collaboration. The study is a qualitative case study, focusing on contemporary events in a Norwegian kindergarten. The empirical material consists of video-recorded field observations of the process as well as the final product. Through an inductive exploration of the development of verbal narrative, three analytical strands are identified: (i) verbal narrative in the final product, (ii) multimodal narrative in the final product, and (iii) narrative devices applied by the children during the process. The findings demonstrate the importance of including and considering the process, the product, narrative devices and all the modalities--in particular the kineikonic mode--when creating an animated story with young children. An implication of these findings is for ECE teachers and researchers to acknowledge and integrate all the various aspects that contribute to the final product when young children create animated stories.

The purpose of this literature review is to identify patterns and discuss key perspectives from empirical studies published during the last decade that explore how young children (birth to six years old) and teachers together engage with digital technologies in early childhood education and care institutions. An inductive thematic analysis results in five key perspectives: 1) digital play is real play; 2) disconnected contexts; 3) teachers' knowledge and beliefs; 4) learning with and from technology; and 5) children as creators. The findings demonstrate the importance of defining digital technology in a broad way. Further, several of the articles highlight teachers' reflections and judgements regarding how they can implement and embed digital technology into their pedagogical practice. Based on the findings, I suggest that a more explicit focus on digital technology be embedded into pedagogical practice in national ECEC curricula, as well as in national guidelines for EC teacher education.

This paper explores how digital competence and digital technology are addressed in Norwegian early childhood teacher education (ECTE). The aim is to provide a national overview of the ECTE institutions' programme and relevant course plans to identify how the preservice teachers are being prepared for their future professional life as digitally competent early childhood teachers. We have conducted a summative content analysis of national regulations, national guidelines, programme and course plans by drawing on Goodlad et al.'s curriculum theory. The findings demonstrate that digital competence and digital technology are clearly emphasised and addressed at the ideological curriculum level but less so at the formal and perceived levels. Data shows that there is a need to define and operationalise professional digital competence from an ECTE perspective. Furthermore, there is a need to more explicitly describe the learning outcomes in the programme and course plans, focusing on both theoretical and practical aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital technology is a central part of young children's everyday lives in most societies today. This paper contributes to current research by exploring two teachers' pedagogical strategies when creating digital stories together with groups of six kindergarten children (age 4-5). The study has a qualitative, multiple-case study design. The analysis was performed inductively across the two cases. The findings show that when creating digital stories with young children, teachers' various pedagogical strategies are equally important for the process and product: "Inviting to dialogue," "Explaining the practical," and "Instructing for results." An encouraging tone characterises the teachers' communication. The research findings contribute to knowledge of how teachers involve groups of children in technology-mediated story creation processes by highlighting the pedagogical perspectives when using digital technology.

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