Elaine Khoo – författare

This groundbreaking book explores the interactions of three powerful concepts in early childhood education (ECE): early childhood settings as sites for democracy, belonging as a human need and basis for participation, and relationships with land. Through exemplars of pioneering practice, it renews thinking about democracy and broadens understanding of belonging in culturally diverse societies.

Drawing from three research projects undertaken with teachers as collaborators in 11 early childhood settings, the book showcases examples grounded in Aotearoa New Zealand''s renowned bicultural curriculum, Te Whāriki. It demonstrates how participatory design methodologies can reimagine the theory-practice nexus and privilege diverse voices often marginalized in traditional research settings. Woven throughout are "glimpses of hope" that illustrate new possibilities for pedagogical practice in the country''s bicultural context. In a time marked by significant societal shifts and neoliberal pressures, the authors argue that layering and interweaving these three concepts enables the creation of innovative approaches to policy thinking and practice that challenge existing frameworks and advocate for public, democratic ECE systems.

This essential resource will interest postgraduate students, researchers, teachers, student teachers, early childhood managers and policy makers. It offers valuable insights for advanced students and practitioners of early childhood education seeking to understand democratic practice and belonging in diverse cultural contexts around the globe.

This groundbreaking book explores the interactions of three powerful concepts in early childhood education (ECE): early childhood settings as sites for democracy, belonging as a human need and basis for participation, and relationships with land. Through exemplars of pioneering practice, it renews thinking about democracy and broadens understanding of belonging in culturally diverse societies.

Drawing from three research projects undertaken with teachers as collaborators in 11 early childhood settings, the book showcases examples grounded in Aotearoa New Zealand''s renowned bicultural curriculum, Te Whāriki. It demonstrates how participatory design methodologies can reimagine the theory-practice nexus and privilege diverse voices often marginalized in traditional research settings. Woven throughout are "glimpses of hope" that illustrate new possibilities for pedagogical practice in the country''s bicultural context. In a time marked by significant societal shifts and neoliberal pressures, the authors argue that layering and interweaving these three concepts enables the creation of innovative approaches to policy thinking and practice that challenge existing frameworks and advocate for public, democratic ECE systems.

This essential resource will interest postgraduate students, researchers, teachers, student teachers, early childhood managers and policy makers. It offers valuable insights for advanced students and practitioners of early childhood education seeking to understand democratic practice and belonging in diverse cultural contexts around the globe.

This book explores the notion of software literacy, a key part of digital literacy which all contemporary students and citizens need to understand. Software literacy involves a critical understanding of how the affordances and conceptual approaches of everything from operating systems, creative apps and media editors, to software-based platforms and infrastructures work to inform and shape the ways we think and act. As a cultural artefact, programing code plays a role in reproducing, reinforcing, and augmenting existing cultural practices, as well as generating completely new coded practices. A proposed three-tier framework for software literacy is the focus for a two-year empirical investigation into how tertiary students become more literate about the nature and implications of software they encounter as part of their tertiary studies. Two case studies of software learning and use in university-level engineering and screen & media studies courses are presented, investigating the mapping of students’ trajectory of the learning of desktop applications against this framework for software literacy. 

Though the book’s focus is primarily educational, its content also has implications for any field that makes use of software and information & communication technology systems and applications. As such, the book will be of interest to all readers whose work involves the challenges and opportunities presented by software-based teaching and learning; and to those interested in how software impacts the workplace and leisure activities that make up our day-to-day lives.

​This book examines contexts and possibilities in Aotearoa New Zealand education contexts arising from the international trend for open, flexible, innovative learning environments (ILE), specifically on the pedagogical load. The book responds to questions such as: What does it mean to teach, learn or lead in an innovative learning environment? What happens when teachers move form single cell learning spaces to open, collaborative ones?