Free Play or Tight Spaces? Mapping Participatory Literacies in Apps

Abstract

Building on existing research applying app maps (Heins-Israelson, 2015), the authors take ideological orientation to broaden app evaluations and consider participatory literacies, social and communicational practices relevant to children’s everyday digitally-mediated lives. Drawing from their North American elementary classroom studies on children’s technology play with iPads, the authors compare four typical literacy practices with apps: practicing a skill, reading an e-book, animating a film, and designing an interactive world. A rubric and radar maps are introduced to help teachers assess and visualize educational apps’ potential to develop six dimensions of participatory literacies: multiplayer, productive, multimodal, multilinear, pleasurable, and connected.