Digital play

This essay introduces the concept of digital play in early childhood education and how digital technology can be effectively integrated into early childhood settings. Play is a primary pedagogical approach in early childhood education and is viewed and used as a means of enabling young children active, hands-on engagement with materials as a way of fostering knowledge about the world. Digital play suggests a way of using digital technology that is similarly aligned and helps researchers and educators use digital technology for building knowledge. Young children are growing up within digital contexts that require adults involved in their education and care to have knowledge or a perspective on how they understand and think about ‘digital’ in relation to children’s lives as well as to play as a valued pedagogy. The essay introduces the Philosophy of Technology as a way of explaining different viewpoints for understanding what is meant by digital. The critical theory of technology, as articulated by Feenberg, describes how human values are also brought to bear in the design and use of digital technology. A focus on values may influence how early childhood researchers and educators think about digital play in terms of the values that are brought to the design and use of digital technology in early childhood education in relation to the pedagogical use of play for children’s learning. The chapter concludes with a new conceptual pathway for thinking about what ‘digital play’ is in contexts where young children today are growing up with and using networked digital technologies daily.