The children and the camera

In order to increase the children’s learning on ICT, I placed the digital camera in the middle of children’s activity table. Just several seconds later, girl S, who is four and a half year old, discovered it and started to manipulate it in her hands. I approached her to remind her to put the string around her neck. Many other children were fascinated with the camera as well and they formed a big group to follow S and patiently wait for their turns. “Virginia, am I after L?” “Virginia, is it my turn now?”… They expressed their intention for participation so I arranged them in order to take turns.

S walked around the centre taking photos of both the environment and the children.

-------- S:“Virginia, look, I am gonna to take a photo of the monkey bars cos I like playing here”.

-------- I:“That’s a good idea.”

……

-------- S:“Excuse me, Virginia. Can you show me what my photo looks like?”

-------- I: “ Of course, Look here. There are the photos you just took. You can see them one by one”

-------- S:“ Yeah, I like my photos. Can I take them home to show my mum?

-------- I:“ Sure, we will print off one if you want to show your mum. We’ll do it after.”

……

When S was walked into the room, she met her brother，R at the door.

-------- S:“R, you want me take a photo of you? OK, look here. Say cheese. Good boy. R, do you want to look at your photo? Virginia will help us to look at them.”

When I showed them the photos, S looked at them with a sense of fulfillment on her face announcing: “R, look. This is you. I took photos of you. I’m good at shooting, aye.”

S walked inside to the bookshelf to take a photo of a Maori myth book named Tane and the star. I asked her why she liked to take pictures of this book. She said: “I like Tane cos he lit up the dark night sky. He is cool.” Meanwhile, she pretended to be Tane scattering “stars” into dark night skies. That is what we did when we acted out the myth at mat time. S turned the pages of the book and took photos of all the pages in the book. After a while, when we sat down to look at her photos in the camera, we found she had another book of Tane and the stars. The difference is this book is a digital one.

When I reminded S to give a turn to another boy, she accepted that and gave it to J saying: “J, it’s your turn now.” Then she took the string off her neck and helped to hang around J’s and reminded J: “You need to put this around your neck, otherwise you might drop it on the ground.” J had no idea about the camera and he even held it upside down. He was not sure which button to push. When S noticed J could not use the camera properly, she offered her help again. She told J: “Don’t block the lens. Move your fingers away.” When she figured out J had no idea about her suggestion she had to solve the problem physically by moving J’s fingers off the lens. Then she continued to teach J how to push the shot button.

-------- S: “You push here.”

-------- J: “Where?”

-------- S: “Here, the big button. Here, look at my hand.”… “Ummm, that’s it”

-------- J: “Yeah!!!”

After S and J, many other children also took the opportunity to take photos with this camera. On that afternoon, I uploaded all the photos the children had taken the computer. The children were very excited to share their work with their friends. S said: “Look at this. Its R. I took this photo for him.” J said: “Look at this. Its my one. I took a photo of the lemon tree.” I asked them if they wanted to print their photos off so that they could take them home to show their family. They all nodded their heads and called out “Yep”. Then the children took turns to go to the office with me as the computer in the office links to the printer. We printed off one photo for each child. Great stuff you guys!

The children really had a great time taking photos with this digital camera and many learnings happened. Their camera knowledge and operational skills were extended. They showed their strong interest, curiosity and persistence to explore the camera’s function. Thouvenelle, Borunda, and McDowell (1994) argue that in order to participate in this world, our children will need to develop their own perspectives as well as the capacity to continue acquiring new knowledge and skills. In addition, there were lots of questioning, explaining and happiness sharing during the process of experiencing the camera which enhanced their communication skills. And their social skills, such as turn taking, interaction initiating and listening skills were promoted as well. What’s more? Peer teaching and learning happened all the time. Te Whaariki advocates for peer learning, stating children are expected to experience an environment where they are encouraged to learn with and alongside others (Ministry of Education, 1996). Besides, the children developed confidence in using the digital camera. As Liu (1996) mentioned, knowing how to use ICT often makes young children feel confident and increases their self-esteem.

I am glad they enjoyed the exploration today. I will continue to promote the children’s curiosity in ICT. More ICT devices, such as the active screen, the CD players…will be given to them for exploring and their learning journey will be documented for them to revisit.


References:

Liu, M. (1996). An exploratory study of how pre-kindergarten children use the interactive multimedia technology: Implications for multimedia software design. Journal of Computing in Childhood Education, 7(1/2), 71-92.

Ministry of Education. (1996). Te Whāriki: He whāriki mātauranga mō ngā mokopuna o Aotearoa. Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media.

Thouvenelle, S., Borunda, M., & McDowell, C. (1994). Replicating Inequities: Are we doing it again? In J.L. Wright & D. D. Shade (Eds.), Young Children: Active Learners in a Technological Age (pp.151-165). Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children.