ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the potential of iPads in playgroup for engaging families in young children's learning. It takes a sociocultural view of children's learning in the playgroup context where iPads were introduced in ways that encouraged interactions between children, parents and playgroup facilitators. The chapter provides insights into parent perspectives of young children's early experiences of touch-screen technologies in supported playgroups. It then focuses on the research that parents described children's experiences with iPads in Supported Playgroups in Schools (SPinS) in similar ways to Plowman and McPake's (2013) descriptions of operational learning, positive dispositions to learning and technologies in everyday life. Operational learning appeared in examples where parents observed the need for the facilitator to be nearby to scaffold the steps; positive dispositions were referred to in references to children interacting with others during playful explorations, and technologies in everyday life were described in relation to the modelled use of iPads by the facilitators.
