Browsing by Subject "digitaalisen leikin viitekehys"

Finnish children live their everyday life in a continuously evolving digitalized world. Due to the new early childhood curricula, information and communications technology has become a part of the traditional play-based early childhood education. Hence, it is justifiable to seek for various natural ways of combining play and technology pedagogically. The aim of this study is to examine the manifestation of digital play among preschool pupils. This is conducted through the use of Bee-Bot, a programmable floor robot for teaching early computing and programming. The manifestation of digital play is aimed to be studied by means of several research problems. The main research question is “In what ways do the forms of play occur while playing with Bee-Bot?” It is divided into the following two sub-questions: “In what way do the forms of epistemic play occur while playing with Bee-Bot?” “In what ways do the forms of ludic play occur while playing with Bee-Bot?” This study was implemented as a qualitative case study, and the material was based on observations in two preschool groups in Helsinki in January 2018. The Digital Play Framework (DPF) directed the critical examination and analysis of this study. All the manifestation of play was collected from the study material through the use of the indicators of digital play, followed by calculation, critical examination and analysis. The material showed that digital play begins as epistemic play and then turns to ludic, as Bird and Edwards state in their framework. Most of the play occurred epistemic, focusing on exploring, problem solving and acquiring skills. The children started to show more signs of ludic play more at the third round of observation. Based on the results of this study, it is possible to argue that the control of the device undoubtedly contributes to more creative action in digital play. Trough slight modifications, the DPF could be a useful observation and assessment tool for children’s digital play.