This article aims to explore how the interactive whiteboard is situated in the social and material conditions of an early years free-flow learning environment. It examines how the affordances of the interactive whiteboard and the expectations of the surrounding classroom impact how activity involving the interactive whiteboard unfolds. It achieves this through an analysis of observations, documented through video, of how children enter into and exit from activities involving the interactive whiteboard during free-flow activity time. We share the different types of entrance and exit observed and what these suggest about the social and material conditions in which interactive whiteboard is situated. Based on these findings, we suggest opportunities for the disruption of existing patterns of integration of the interactive whiteboard into the learning environment, so as to explore the potential for more collaborative and creative engagement with the technology. Specifically, we argue that the emphasis on turn-taking that characterises the early years learning environment – an emphasis reinforced by the inability of the interactive whiteboard to support simultaneous engagement by multiple users – is prompting children to engage individually with the resources and miss opportunities to create and play together.

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Based on qualitative interviews with primary school teachers in Greater London, this article explores teachers’ narratives to uncover how Children with Migrant Backgrounds (CMB) are positioned in the contexts of their learning experience. In particular, the article utilises the analytical category of trust to argue that the position of CMB in teachers’ narratives is related to the form of teachers’ trust. When trust is based on categorical inequalities, CMB are often considered untrustworthy partners construction of the learning and teaching experience. Trust based on categorical inequalities becomes a form of trust in distrust and CMB are positioned in the children’s needs paradigm where decision-making is reserved to teachers who act for them and on their behalf. When trust is based on personal relationships, CMB are positioned as agents who are capable to voice their interests, bringing about consequential changes in the contexts of their experiences. CMB are positioned in the children’s interests paradigm, where agency is expected and promoted as a right of children who are socially constructed as agents who can make a difference with their choices.

A rich tradition of pedagogical and psychological research has explored the impact of technology on the cognitive and social development of the child. However, little research has focused on the implications of the use of digital technologies in educational settings for children's agency. This article introduces hybrid-transitions as a theoretical tool to conceptualise transitions between the use of digitally enhanced and non-digitally enhanced experiences as dense social spaces where young children show agency in the construction and coconstruction of knowledges. Hybrid-transitions refers to children's movement from the immersion in digitally-enhanced experiences generated by educational technologies to non-digitally mediated interactions with peers or adults. This article argues, with the support of examples, that during hybrid transitions digital experiences are shared via personal narratives linking ideas, experiences and emotions. Individual narratives are "interlaced" in co-constructed group narratives authored by the children through face to face interactions. The interactive authorship of interlaced narratives is discussed as a form of agency, as it includes making choices regarding action and understanding of action. This article intends to promote attention to hybrid-transitional spaces among adults who work in educational settings where digital technologies are utilised.

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