This article draws upon the cinematic, fictional portrayal of Avatars as a metaphor to show how young children are positioned in similar ways in relation to technology and nature. The authors discuss children as digital natives growing up in brave new virtual worlds, but also as vulnerable innocents who are specially attuned to and in need of nature. They wonder: Shouldn’t children be engaged in hands-on explorations rather than glued to computer screens? Do we understand them as emergent users of new literacies and new technologies? If so, how might early literacy education change to prepare children to read, write, be, and act as full participants in digital worlds and unknowable futures?
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Karen E. Wohlwend (2010) studied this question.