Three Year Old Photographers: Educational and Parental Mediation as a Basis for Visual Literacy via Digital Photography in Early Childhood.
The study examines two years of an educational program for children aged three to four, based on the use of digital cameras. It assesses the program's effects on the children and adults involved in the project, and explores how they help the youngsters acquire visual literacy. Operating under the assumption that formal curricula usually marginalize visual and digital literacy, the program gives photography a central role in all areas of preschool learning: the children take pictures of all their daily preschool activities, and view and learn with photographs from various resources. The findings illustrate the centrality of educational mediation by both preschool teachers and parents in equipping young children with visual literacy. As all participants indicated, the educational process via digital photography gives preschool children the ability to experiment with problem solving, and develop curiosity and pleasure in learning, as well as independence, confidence, responsibility, empowerment and participatory learning of both parents and children. Keywords: visual literacy, educational mediation theory, children, photography, early childhood education, parental mediation, media literacy Could digital photography activities embedded in preschool education support the educational needs of preschoolers, their teachers and their parents? This study explores the visual literacy learning experiences activated by a two year educational program in an Israeli preschool. It assesses the program's effects on the children and adults involved in the project, and explores how they help the youngsters acquire visual literacy. Instead of marginalizing visual and digital literacy as occasional, irregular activites, the program instead gives photography a central role in all areas of preschool learning: the children take pictures of all their daily preschool activities, and view and learn with photographs from various resources. Conventional approaches to parental mediation in the era of mass communication focuses on parents' role in mitigating the negative effects of the television on their children. It involves restrictive mediation subjecting viewing to rules and censorship; active mediation investing contents viewed with critical meaning; and co viewing (Chakroff Nathanson 2011; Schofield Clark 2011) Scholars have long noted that parental mediation and media literacy are disconnected from each other even as scholars and practitioners acknowledge there is a growing need to "help parents use mediation in ways that encourage media literacy skills in their children" (Mendoza 2011, 38) A major impetus for this research is the increasingly visual, cultural and technological landscape in which pictures and visual images are a central factor in defining basic perceptions such as reality, identity, time, space and relationships. Hall and Liberman (2015) published a review of different studies in early childhood education dealing with intervention programs and education of parents through different media A. FRIEDMAN Journal of Media Literacy Education (2016) 16 technologies. This review determines that, in addition to the remaining limitations and questions, there are reasons to think that "there is promise in the use of technology based delivery methods for intervention" (31) Parents perceive joint watching of educational television programs as positive, and as providing an opportunity for learning (Van Vliet et al. 2013) Researchers found that In addition, parents wish to be involved in this activity as active partners (conversing, singing, reciting) and in discussions following the program. Parents' mediation of children's use of the Internet employs terminology parallel to that regarding mediation of television content, that is restrictive, active and co use mediation. Nikken and Jansz (2014, 263) claim: "Co use amounted to collaboratively surfing the web to track down pleasant content for mutual enjoyment." Mendoza (2009) claims that parents need different strategies to enact media literacy with their children, as opposed to how teachers do this based on the curriculum and goals they set. However, she says, for parents to implement media literacy practices at home, they need to comprehend and adopt the perceptions and principles of media literacy. For example, researchers found that parents' mediation of media contributes to traditional literacy acquisition, if it is a guided and age appropriate interaction (Bittman et al. 2011) The current study confirms that parental mediation theory needs to be redefined in view of the evolving digital environment and the principles of media literacy. The mediation envisaged here is what Schofield Clark defines as participatory learning, centering on learner driven inquiry, free experimentation and play (2011 333 335) The main research questions investigated are whether educational mediation by the preschool teacher and the parents amplify the children's learning and skills, and how teacher and parents perceive and describe the photo based program. Literature Review: Educational Mediation Theory and Media Children's early years are crucial for their physical, social, emotional and cognitive development. The role of communication technologies in this development, however, is disputed, regarding young children's specific needs. The question is whether technology can satisfy these needs or have the opposite effect, distancing children from essential early childhood developmental experiences (Van Scoter, Ellis, Railsback 2001) Successful integration of information and communication technologies (ICT) is consistent with the constructivist approach to learning, a learner based approach, as well as on sharing, relevancy, creativity and continuity. Means and Olsen (as quoted in Schiller Tillett 2004, 411) list the characteristics of a successful integration of this kind, which includes authentic and challenging tasks, involvement of all children in advanced skills, heterogeneous groups and cooperation, the teacher as more as a coach or aide than a purveyor of knowledge, and more prolonged hands on work by the youngsters. Current theories of educational mediation, based mainly on the approaches of Vygotsky and Feuerstein (e.g. Tal 1996; Tal 2004; Kozulin 2003; Klein 2008) contend that the conditions for the success of a teaching program or methods in promoting literacy depend on attendant educational mediation. They also assert that achievements in developing cognitive ability and its quality depend on the child's interactions with meaningful mediators. Klein states that educational mediation enhances children's cognitive functioning and their socioaffective relations, which make learning possible. The importance of educational mediation, however, transcends the affective and social domains. As we know today, youngsters need high levels of cognitive functioning to cope successfully with twenty first century challenges. To attain such levels, says Klein, children should learn with the help of an adult who mediates between them and the environment, and tailors this to their interest areas and ability levels. The mediating adult "explains to the child the meaning of experiences, connects them, expands them beyond the immediate sensory experience, provides feedback, and helps to organize behavior and carry out tasks" (Klein 2008, 96 97) The mediator "selects, changes, amplifies and interprets objects and processes for the child" (Kozulin Presseissen 1995) A. FRIEDMAN Journal of Media Literacy Education (2016) 17 Vygotsky uses the concept of "zone of proximal development" to define the gap between intellectual age, i.e. the current level of development, assessed through observation of the problems that children solve by themselves, and the level they reach when they solve problems cooperatively with a mediator (Vygotsky 1982, 213) By implication, children always attain deeper understanding and greater cerebral independence by means of a teacher's qualitative facilitation than by studying the same contents independently (Tal 1996) In the case at hand, this means toying with a digital camera and regards children's interaction with teachers or parents as central. Thus, the span of this range may also change over time because the children receive more and more complex assignments, presenting them with new challenges (Costley 2012) The first decade of the 21st century saw a dramatic increase in children's quantitative consumption of media (Rideout, Foehr Roberts 2010) something that the authors attribute mainly to children's access to, and ownership of, multimedia smartphones. Toddlers aged two to four spend one hour and fifty eight minutes per day, on average, using total screen media. The average time use among those aged zero to eight years has tripled over a two year period. Among those who use mobile devices every day, it was one hour and seven minutes per day in 2013. A slight decrease in children's use of traditional media in favor of mobile media and applications was also found (Rideout 2013) Digital cameras are increasingly accessible to, and possessed by, children from their early years. These cameras play an active role for adults and children in documentation, presentation and sharing with social communities, both real and virtual (NAEYC Position Statement on Technology and Young Children, 2012) The effect is evident in the rise of both the quantity and the intensity of photographic activity by children or others around them. Research on Children's Photography Previous research on children and cameras has largely examined photography as a means to improve adults' understanding of children's experiences. Most related research focuses on photography as a way for children to express opinions about their surroundings, e.g. school, and to document events and experiences (Schiller Tillett 2004) Such studies seek to challenge the age, size and verbal asymmet