Young Children's Collaboration on the Computer with Friends and Acquaintances

The processes and patterns of strategies used by children when drawing on the computer with friends and acquaintances were investigated in a case study. The participants were five-and-six-year-old children and the study took place in their home settings. The data collection methods consisted of interviews, observations, audio recordings, video recordings, drawing artifacts, and screen capture. The analysis began with the selection of collaborative episodes, followed by the interpretation of those episodes. The findings revealed a striking contrast between the collaboration of friendship pairs and acquaintance pairs. The friendship pairs exhibited a total number of 23 episodes while the acquaintance pairs engaged in only three episodes. The young children in this study used two main collaborative strategies: (1) establishment of the pretend frame and, (2) coherence and elaboration of pretend frames. The acquaintance pairs applied only the strategy of the establishment of pretend frame while collaborative strategies of friendship pairs showed unique path of progression from the establishment to coherence and elaboration of pretend frames. Established, playful relationships (such as friendships) appear to allow children to productively begin experiencing computer activities.