Children’s Play with Digital Technologies: Connecting Digital and Non-digital, People, Place, Embodiment and Affect

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Abstract
There is much concern surrounding children’s digital technology use. Research has shown that educators feel uncertain about, and would like more examples of, how to integrate quality digital pedagogy into their practice. Drawing upon video data of a simulated surfing experience, this article contends with three core hesitations surrounding children’s digital play: that it is sedentary; that it is isolating; and that it disconnects children from offline worlds. The authors engage with theories of affective pedagogy and socio-materiality to consider how bodies matter in children’s digital learning and lives. The authors follow scholarship that has disrupted the normative displacement of bodies – material and corporeal – in education. The authors’ analysis attends to withness , highlighting the connections between digital and non-digital, people and place, embodiment and affect. The authors’ aim is to offer inspiration about what is possible in activities specifically designed to engage children and adults in play with digital technologies.
Funding Information
  • Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child (CE200100022)
  • Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child (CE200100022)
  • Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child (CE200100022)