Family Time Online (Family Literacies Online Project)
Introduction
The Family Time Online project focused on capacity building for early childhood educators who deliver family literacy programs for families with infant and toddler aged children. Working in collaboration with key program providers, the project documented family literacy encounters and practices, and created and tested an exemplary model and materials used in providing virtual literacy programs for families with infants and toddlers. This resulted in a co-authored Educator’s Guide and Parent Resource booklet.
The project also focused on building digital literacy capacity for both parents and educators and increasing their awareness of programs and supports for adults’ educational upgrading, skills development, and job searches in New Brunswick.
Although face to face programming has returned, many programs have made online learning a continued feature of their program. Our pandemic experience has shown us that being able to offer programs online has tremendous benefits.
Funded by the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, as well as the Department of Post Secondary Education Training and Labour, the project spanned from September 2021 to December 2022.
Learn more about the Family Time Online project by clicking on one of the options below:
- Project Description – more details about the scope and goals
- Literature Review – conducted by Dr. Pam Whitty
- Project Implementation – what was done
- Educator’s Guide and more resources
The educators who participated shared the following quotes:
“It’s been valuable to share and learn from others, who have also had to learn on a dime, new technological strategies – that can both serve our parents and the children, simultaneously and sometimes separately, even if we wanted it to be simultaneous.”
“There was little to no research and literature on navigating screen learning and teaching and interaction, with 2 and 3 year olds. We have much to learn from each other, from the tiniest of tweaks (eg., using sticky notes to frame your screen while you are interacting) to helping parents and families actually download Zoom and be able to use their own technology well enough to meet up online with us.”