Doing Routine Maintenance: Families Designing for Learning at Home with New Media and Technology

Abstract

Home is a vital setting for children learning in the context of everyday routines of family life. As technological developments create new opportunities for children to make use of domestic spaces and materials, families must reconfigure their homes, learning, and busy schedules. This dissertation examines ethnographically how families are designing for learning at home given the wide use of mobile technology and new media. Findings show how, through their daily activities and interactions with each other and material resources, families are continuously improvising with tools they have on hand and new ones that become available. Families perform routine maintenance through a number of different sociotechnical practices: media multi-tasking; invisible homemaking; and re-newing learning. These design strategies enable families to make sense of technological change in ways that maintain familiar activities and valued practices.