Spotlight on Digital Media And Learning

3.4.10 | How is digital media changing the way young children learn? Could the way young children learn be evolving to meet a new, dynamic digital media format?

Authors Jay Blanchard, a professor at Arizona State University, and Terry Moore ask these and other questions in their new report: “The Digital World of Young Children: Emergent Literacy” (PDF), out this week from the Pearson Foundation.

The white paper was released at the annual Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) International Symposium.

Blanchard and Moore conclude “developmental milestones are changing as today’s children approach learning and literacy in new ways, not thought possible in the past. “

The white paper surveys recent research on how digital media is affecting the development of emergent literacy skills (opportunities to listen, speak, read and write) in kids ages 3, 4 and 5.

The authors find that these opportunities are “increasingly sculpted by digital media,” perhaps especially in the least developed countries where digital learning opportunities in cyber cafes, game rooms and with cell phones may be “more accessible than books.”

The paper examines attention and information processing; attitudes toward learning and social collaboration; and levels of digital literacy. 

Blanchard and Moore raise questions about the possible impact of digital media on children’s brain development, learning rates, vocabulary acquisition, self-directed learning, and our global interconnectedness. They call for more empirical research to help find answers to some of these questions.

You can download the executive summary and the full report at the Pearson Foundation.