Emerging Mobile Learning Pedagogy Practices: Using tablets and constructive apps in early childhood education

ABSTRACT Early childhood teachers introduced mobile learning activities and educational software to the children's in-class learning activities. This qualitative study implemented one constructive creation app in two early childhood classrooms. It designed, implemented and evaluated the effectiveness of pedagogy practices (PP) for the meaningful implementation of constructive apps in an early childhood classroom. Two small groups of four to five years-old children engaged in weekly in-class research activities. Sixteen videos and 122 artifacts were analysed to determine each child's well-being, involvement, and motivation during the digital creation activities and evaluate the effectiveness of the implemented PP. The most effective PP embedded strategies that 1. enhanced the children's perceived autonomy, competence, and relatedness, 2. implemented a flexible and generous use of direct interactions between teachers and students, and 3. provided app operational habit-shaping routines that guided young children’s engagement with the mobile device and app. The implications of these findings are practical and theoretical. Teachers may use the transferable PP to guide their efforts to develop and implement digital creation activities in their early childhood classrooms. The findings of this study may also contribute the development of a mobile learning theory for young children and address a gap in the research literature.