Productive Participation - Children as Active Media Producers in Kindergarten

Media education and media cultures should be considered a part of early childhood education, because media has an important role in children’s lives. With a socio-cultural learning approach, children are considered active participants and competent actors with the media. In this paper, media education has been approached as a case study from the viewpoint of active production and participation. The processes of creating media stories included steps from orientation and planning to action and story production. According to the results gained via content analysis, children were able to share ideas and listen to each other’s choices and opinions in participatory learning. They were also social actors motivated to participate in conversations and negotiations. The joy of learning and acting together intensified the social learning. Keywords Early childhood education digital literacy participation media production