Digital Media Project for Children

This blog-style website brings together research, observation, and commentary from the Digital Media Partnership (DMP) that focuses on early learning and digital media, especially e-books. "This project is concerned with understanding the social, cognitive and literacy implications of e-books implemented on digital tablets when used by children and adults in a shared reading context." The DMP is a collaboration of the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders at McGill University, Tribal Nova, and the Center for Literacy.

The site is designed to highlight research on digital media's effect on early learning including:

• shared reading experiences between parents and children - "During shared reading, children learn about language and reading while talking about books with the parent. Now, more and more books are replaced by electronic gadgets that we call 'digital media'. In fact, many children’s books have been adapted to digital media such as computers and digital tablets."
• the "social, cognitive, and literacy implications of e-books implemented on digital tablets when used by children and adults in a shared reading context," for example, interactive and participative reading on the iPad. 
• digital literacy -" the ability to locate, organise, understand, evaluate, and create information using such digital technology."

Blogs analyse research that includes the frequency of digital media use among young children, the ways in which interactions with adults in shared reading circumstances might enhance learning, differences in learning from video voices versus live adult interactions with children, the addition of animation in e-books, vocabulary development, and knowledge transfer from the screen (two-dimensional world) to the real (three-dimensional) world, among other research.

According to the blog site organisers: "Our observations will help us to develop guidelines for software developers so that they can create better digital media for children. Moreover, our observations will help us to advise parents on the most effective strategies for using digital media with their children. In summary, the project will result in e-books that are better adapted to the needs of diverse users and which are effective in the promotion of both foundational literacy skills and transferable digital competencies by children and adults."