Young children’s disputes during computer game playing at home

portrait
Originally uploaded by angie cat

Young children’s shared use of the computer can lead to conflict (Yelland, 2005) although little is known about the social organization of their disputes while using computer technology. This paper examines disputes that arose between two sisters during the playing of a computer game in their home. The children were aged four and six at the time. The recorded data was transcribed using Jefferson notation and two extended sequences selected for analysis after repeated viewing of the recording. Disputes occurred in both of these sequences. Antecedent events in disputes were either the physical action of clicking the mouse or the appearance of an on-screen image. Oppositions to these made apparent presumptions (Maynard, 1985) held by the older sister about the younger child’s ability to play the game. Specifically, she presumed that the younger child didn’t know how to play and needed to watch to learn how to play. Through oppositional turns, the younger child asserted that she did know how to play. These differences contributed to several disputes during the beginning stages of the game playing. Methods used in the design of oppositional turns included elongation of vowel sounds, stress given to words and raised pitch. It was the younger child’s accounts that lead to resolutions and closure of the disputes. That is, her accounts justified (Cobb-Moore, Danby & Farrell, 2008) her actions competently to her sister who allowed her, ultimately, to become the player of the game rather than an observer. This consideration of the interaction between the sisters and during their interactions with computer technology extends previous work on young children’s disputes; the paper explicates how the girls negotiated the local social order that sharing the computer game disrupted, and establishes how ownership of the computer mouse and observation of on-screen images were consequential in the occurrence and course of their spoken disputes.
Cobb-Moore, C., Danby, S., & Farrell, A. (2008). ‘I told you so’: Justification in disputes in
young children’s interactions in an early childhood classroom. Discourse Studies, 10, 595-614.
Maynard, D. (1985). How children start arguments. Language and Society, 14, 1-30.
Yelland, N. (2005). The future is now: A review of the literature on the use of computers in early
childhood education (1994-2004). AACE Journal, 13(2), 201-232.

A dispute

setting and pirate
Originally uploaded by angie cat

I have been invited to be a part of a symposium for the EM/CA conference in Fribourg. This means that I will need to develop an abstract by 1 November. I've started with some reading about disputes (because the symposium focuses on disputes in children's everyday activity). So I have disputes in the recordings of children's use of computers. Disputes are not surprising, in a sense, since the young children were usually sharing the computer (always potentially tricky).

This morning I've been reading Maynard's (1985) paper on the ways that children start arguments. That was a good starting point. It suggested to me, for example, that a non-verbal action such as making a move with the mouse, can be considered as an "antecedent event"
and the next turn after as the opposing action in the following:

H: =do you wanna start with all these crocodiles?
(1.0)
H: yep
K: yes
→ (6.0)↔((H clicking the mouse at intervals))ANTECEDENT EVENT
K:→ >no Hannah don’t< OPPOSITION
(1.0)↔((H still clicking the mouse))LETS OPPOSITION PASS
K:→ don’t SECOND OPPOSITION
(1.0)↔((H continues to move the mouse))LETS OPPOSITION PASS
K:→ o:::wh oh no:::: I said do:::::n’t
(2.0)
H:→ why?
(1.0)
K:→ because I wanted to ( ) the crocodiles
H:→ I did!
K:→ I::: want to
C: one of the animal tiles has fallen sick you need
to use this tile when you can to make sure the
sickness does not spread the sickness spreads
every few moves you make these score zero points
when you ( ) with a sick tile
(7.0)↔((H clicking on various tiles at intervals))
K:→ Hannah I know=
H: =whoops
K:→ Hannah I know how to do it
H:→ >do it< then
(0.4)
H: just call me when you’re ready

As you can see, I've only begun a rough analysis but it is more than I had done when this day started! More to come.

Died and went to heaven

The ARC Discovery grants have been announced. Here is one and I will leave it at that!

Queensland University of Technology
DP110104227 Prof Susan J Danby, Prof Amanda H Spink, Prof Karen Thorpe, Dr Christina R Davidson
Approved
Project Title
Interacting with knowledge, interacting with people: web searching in early childhood
2011 $160,636.00
2012 $161,836.00
2013 $141,499.00
Administering Organisation
Project Summary
Queensland University of Technology
This study investigates the extent of pre-school children's Web searching, what they access and in what social contexts. Findings will inform educators and families about Web use for socially interactive learning and knowledge-building.

playing

tomotoes
Originally uploaded by angie cat

Here's my first attempt at an abstract that encompasses the work on sack's gloss and a perspicuous setting:

This paper draws on the concept of a perspicuous setting (Sacks, 1995, Garfinkel, 2002) to explicate an aspect of children’s everyday activity of computer game playing in the home; in this case, how young children differentiate between playing a computer game and showing someone how to play. The distinction is an important one for avoiding or resolving disputes or arguments that can arise during children’s use of the computer. This single-case analysis considers how a child who is supposed to be showing another how to play is taken by that child to be playing. The analysis describes and explicates methods used to accomplish doing “showing how to play” as distinct from playing. Methods include: accounting for what you’re doing as you play, designing turns to encompass watching and listening as mutually accomplishing showing how to play, and requesting permission to play on behalf of the other in order to show how to play. Discussion establishes young children’s on-going interactional work (ten Have, 1999), as they negotiate the problem of sharing the computer, and extends understandings of children’s interactional competence.
Garfinkel, H. (2002). Ethnomethodology’s program: Working out Durkheims aphorism.
Lanham, ML: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Sacks, H. (1995). Lectures on conversation/Harvey Sacks; edited by Gail Jefferson; with an
introduction by Emanuel A. Schegloff. Oxford: Blackwell.
ten Have, P. (1999). Structuring Writing for Reading: Hypertext and the Reading Body’, Human
Studies 22: 273-98

What is a perspicuous setting?

Over the last couple of days I've been doing some thinking and reading because I want to get up a solid proposal for the EM/CA conference in Fribourg in July 2012. My starting point was acknowledging that my recorded data of young children's use of computers is fairly unique with the field. In other words, it presents an opportunity to make a contribution to EM/CA only I have to strengthen my take on it.

First off I looked through a list of EM/CA papers on technology that I have been putting together. I then downloaded a few of those to read. One paper bu Suchman, Trigg and Blomberg made use of the expression ""praxiologically valid courses of instructed action". This concept was coined by Garfinkel, so my "paperchase" then spread to his book "ethnomethodology's program: working out Durkheim's aphorism". and finally that led me to a neat section of writing by Garfinkel where he talks about perspicuous settings.

Garfinkel writes:
"To find a perspicuous setting the EM policy provides that the analyst looks to find, as of the haecceities of some local gang's work affairs, the organizational thing that they are up against and that they can be brought to teach the analyst what he needs to learn and to know from them, with which, by learning from them, to teach them what their affairs consist of as locally produced, locally occasioned, and locally ordered, locally described, locally questionable, counted, recorded, observed, etc., phenomena of order, in and as of their in vivo accountably doable coherent and cogent detail for each another next first time." (p. 182)

Garfinkel says that that one way to find a perspicuous setting is to use Sack's gloss. He then describes it.In brief, Sack's made a distinction between a possessable and possessitive: The former (again, in brief) is a thing that you see, that you want and you know you can have. A possessitive, on the other hand, is see and desired but you know you can't have it because it belongs to somebody else. Sacks sought to find a work group, where members' methods entailed -as an aspect of their daily work -making this distinction. Sack's eventual found that perspicious setting in the work of police in the LA Police Department who made decisions about whether cars were abandoned or just delapidated cars that were nevertheless owned.

So ... how might the gloss be applied to settings that I am interested in? Or should I say, do I have a gloss for which a setting might provide a way to know the thing through examining the work of the people who must decide whether it is one thing or the other? Whew!

Dispute? Argument? Disagreement?

Today, I've been thinking about sections in recordings where interaction between children "broke down". It often led to one of the children walking away from the computer. Anyhow, today I transcribed a little section of one recording in order to look at the talk more closely. the children were playing a game where cartoom images of Australian animals had to be linked if they were the same. The older child, Hannah (H)had played the game and she was showing the younger child, Kaydie (K) how to play it. Throughout the game, Hannah played it in order to show but eventually she let Kaydie play because the younger child insisted that she knew how to do it. the computer (C) also gave directions.

I've copied the first draft transcript here although the transcript doesn't yet include a lot of interactional detail that can be represented in a transcript. For example, Kaydie was very adamant that she didn't need Hannah telling her about the game because she knew what to do. Her talk shows heavy emphasis on the words 'know' and 'away'. So far, I've indicated that she elongated sounds in these words. I will add in other symbols later to show loudness.

H: now Kaydie you just can’t (0.4) you can’t link anyone
(0.4)
H: actually it’s like you have to link two devils together or
maybe you have to ( )
K: I kno↓:::::↑::w
H: so why did you do this? devil crocodile echidna
crocodile kangaroo devil devil
K: because I’m trying to get the sickness awa:::y
(2.0)
H: mmm (0.4) that (0.2) so okay Kaydie you hafta ( ) that one
(0.4)↔((click of mouse))
H: that one
(0.4)↔((click of mouse))
H: that one
(0.4)↔((click of mouse))
and that one

A second example involving the same children looks a little like this:
H: are you ready
K: yes
(1.0)↔((H clicks the mouse))
C: you must fill this container up to the top by making
links on the board (0.4) the more animal tiles you link
together the more points you get (04) to finish the
level you must reach the total points showing above
the container
(2.6)
H: ready
K: yes=
H: =do you wanna start with all these crocodiles?
(1.0)
H: yep
K: yes
→ (6.0)↔((H clicking the mouse at intervals))
K:→ >no Hannah don’t<
(1.0)↔((H still clicking the mouse))
K:→ don’t
(1.0)↔((H continues to move the mouse))
K:→ o:::wh oh no:::: I said do:::::n’t
(2.0)
H:→ why?
(1.0)
K:→ because I wanted to ( ) the crocodiles
H:→ I did!
K:→ I::: want to
C: one of the animal tiles has fallen sick you need
to use this tile when you can to make sure the
sickness does not spread the sickness spreads
every few moves you make these score zero points
when you ( ) with a sick tile
(7.0)↔((H clicking on various tiles at intervals))
K:→ Hannah I know=
H: =whoops
K:→ Hannah I know how to do it
H:→ >do it< then
(0.4)
H: just call me when you’re ready

Anyhow, I will try to do a little analysis so that I can see what I have here. Any thoughts?

Another door opens

door
Originally uploaded by angie cat

This week I am finishing of semester 2 teaching and getting ready for semester 3. The latter entails developing an honours subject which is the first of the subjects in the honours program. It will be a lot of work but I'm looking forward to the involvement.

Another door has opened for me recently. I've been asked to be a co-author on a book chapter for a handbook on children's literacy. it will also be a lot of work but I can't wait to start the collaboration with my very experienced and esteemed co-authors. It is such a privilege to be asked.

So, the summer (semester 3) will be devoted to writing two chapters and it will be a good balance. One will require serious engagement with CA analysis and concepts, and the other will require a lot of reading, and thinking and writing about media and children's literacy.

All good.