The Portuguese Ministry of Education developed a collection of three stories for supporting kindergarten teachers in exploring the theme of online safety with preschoolers. These stories were created in book and digital animation formats. The authors took these three stories to three kindergartens to test their efficacy in scaffolding learning and acquisition of digital skills. This exploratory pilot case study revealed several insights worth pursuing in further research: 1) kindergarten teachers acknowledge that children are digitally immersed at home and consider that exploring the theme of online safety with young children is imperative; 2) in spite of enjoying digital media very much, children were more attentive and retained more information when they were told the stories using the books than when they watched the digital animations, claiming that they “connected” more easily with the storyteller. In the future, the research will provide guidelines for the development of more pedagogical materials on online safety and test them in kindergartens on a national scale.
TopIntroduction
In contemporary society, children are, since birth, surrounded by digital devices that are fully integrated in their homes and in the adults’ lives (Plowman, Stevenson, Stephen & McPake, 2012). Thus, children begin exploring such tools at increasingly younger ages (Dias & Brito, 2016; Hague & Payton, 2010). They usually start by exploring their parents’ smartphones, but many children own personal digital devices, such as tablets and consoles, since they are as young as 3 or 4 years old (Chaudron, Di Gioia & Gemmo, 2018). They have been designated as “digitods” by Holloway, Green and Stephenson (2015), who highlight that they are immersed in highly stimulating, interactive and participative media environments. These “digitods” are relatively autonomous in exploring digital devices – the touch screen is very intuitive, as well as social media and other algorithmic platforms, which present suggestions and options according to previous behaviour. Consequently, they engage in varied activities, being the most popular playing games in apps and watching videos on YouTube (Kabali et al., 2015).
The home setting often contrasts with formal education settings (Marsh, 2003, 2009, 2010; Parry, 2014), where digital technologies have yet to find integration in the spaces and daily routines. At schools, digital media are often given the same immunologic response that our body offers to invasive agents: they are confined to “computer labs”, instead of seamlessly integrated in classrooms (Papert, 2001; Haugland, 2002). In the Portuguese context, an effort has been made in the last decade to equip all schools with computers and internet connection (Plano Tecnológico, 2010). Currently, the average student per computer ratio in mandatory Education is 4 (Pordata, 2019). However, digital literacy and the development of digital skills are still following said “immunologic response” approach, being mostly addressed in specific courses, instead of integrated in the classroom routines, in all courses, as a transversal skill. In addition, Early Childhood Education is not included in these “digitalization” efforts of the Ministry of Education, as it is not mandatory in Portugal. In addition, the offer of public and free Early Childhood Education has only increased in the last few years and is still quite scarce (DGE, 2016). Most kindergartens are private, and, as a consequence, there is an enormous variety of approaches and pedagogies. Nevertheless, digital technologies are rarely used in Portuguese kindergartens, partly due to lack of resources, partly due to lack of training and skills of the Early Childhood Educators, and mostly because there is a common belief that using digital media would be precocious at these ages, and only add to the inadequate and addictive excessively digital environment that children experience at home (Dardanou, Unstad, Brito, Dias, Fotakopoulou & Sakata, in press).
Recent research on young children and digital technology has shown that they are often exposed to risks online because they are, in fact, more skilled and able to perform more activities than parents or other caretakers think (Chaudron et al., 2015; Dias & Brito, 2016; Ponte, Simões, Batista & Jorge, 2017). For example, young children often come across content that is inappropriate for their age, following suggestions from platforms as YouTube, App Store and Google Play, and ads inserted in games. In addition, they are exposed to intrusive data collection and commercial exploitation in social media platforms and apps. Furthermore, some apps are designed to lead children to in-app purchases and subscriptions, without them being fully aware of it, depending on the privacy and safety definitions on their devices. Finally, some games have built-in chats which may result in interactions with strangers, possibly adults. These dangers are reinforced by the fact that many parents often resort to digital media as the “new babysitter”, for keeping young children entertained when they have to work, do domestic chores, or wait for long periods at locations such as restaurants and hospitals, for example (Dias & Brito, 2016). Thus, parents of young children are often oblivious to the possibility of exposure to these online dangers, and have not yet addressed the topic of online safety with them.