Personalising digital learning for young children: Leveraging psychosocial identities and Techne for literacy development

Abstract

AbstractChildren learn literacies as social practices in context. Increasingly, these contexts include technological tools. Moreover, children engage with psychosocial identity tasks that involve more than cognitive growth. With the rapid rise in digital personalisation, there is a need to consider ways to ensure that digital technologies attend to literacies using understandings about psychosocial development. In this paper, we share ideas from Erik Erikson about the psychosocial tasks children must achieve in their communities from infancy and we relate these to literacy. The psychosocial tasks are trust, autonomy, initiative and industry. We explain how digital personalisation efforts might contribute to holistic psychosocial development that are also supportive of expansive literacies. Then, we make three recommendations for enhancing the digital personalisation efforts. These include attending to identity tasks, considering multiple types of growth simultaneously and involving multiple systems (eg, parents, caregivers and community) in planning, implementing and evaluating personalised instructional materials for young children. Practitioner notesWhat is already known Personalisation is a concept centred on meeting learners' individual needs. Digital personalisation tools and practices for young children have not fully leveraged unique aspects of childhood versus other phases of life. What this paper adds Digital personalisation processes for young children can be enhanced through psychosocial considerations within social contexts, particularly for literacy learning. Psychosocial developmental theories offer new ways to think about how to involve parents and other caregivers in digital personalisation processes. Implications for practice Planners, implementers and evaluators of digital personalised instructional materials should tether their efforts to psychosocial identity tasks. Planners, implementers and evaluators should also consider ways to layer multiple types of learning (cognitive, social and psychological) within identity tasks. Planners, implementers and evaluators should work to include multiple support systems (parents, educators and communities) in their efforts to personalise digital activities and materials.