
Ms Fiona Byrne
Lecturer
UCL Knowledge Lab, Early Childhood Studies
Department of Education , School of Childhood and Social Care
Fiona Byrne is a senior lecturer in Early Childhood Studies at the School of Childhood and Social Care.
Areas Of Interest
- Multimodality, touch screen technologies and creativity in the early years
- Multimedia projects completed with artists: using art-based methods to deconstruct dominant theories of childhood and gender, with a central focus on children's rights
My PhD within the UCL Knowledge Lab focuses on multimodality, touch screen technologies and creativity in the early years.
My external consultancy involves multimedia projects completed with artists: using art-based methods to deconstruct dominant theories of childhood and gender, with a central focus on children’s rights.
OVERVIEW
I am a senior lecturer in Early Childhood Studies at the School of Childhood and Social Care.
I have practised within early educational settings for almost a decade as a primary school teacher, a forest school leader and a Montessori teacher. This background accounts for my research interests in pedagogies which support creativity, the use of digital media and children's rights.
CURRENT RESEARCH
My research concentrates on developing pedagogical strategies to support young children’s creative and critical thinking when using digital tools. I currently have ESRC funding for my doctorate "Guided interaction and creativity with tablets in pre-schoolers home environments". This project draws upon multimodal methods and focused ethnography to explore creativity during parent-child interactions with tablets in pre-schoolers' home environments. As an output of my project, I am developing an innovative theory of learning to support parents and policymakers in their understanding of how children can engage creatively with tablets in the home environment.
FUNDING
Oct 2019 - 2026: ESRC funding for PhD in Education. Title: "Guided interaction and creativity with tablets in pre-schoolers home environments". Full Award, Part-Time (fees and stipend). Supervisors: Professor Sara Price and Professor Natalia Kucirkova. Location: UCL Knowledge Lab
MODULES
- Module leader on ED4062: Emerging Research Communities and ED5003: Early Childhood Education and Care- Past Present and Future.
- Seminar tutor on ED5004: Observing,Documenting and Researching with Children, Families and Practitioners.
Publications
Browse past publications by year.
Full publications list
Visit the research repository to view a full list of publications
- A diffractive approach to multimodal transcription: Materialising entanglements between humans and non-humans Multimodality and Society. p. In Press. https://doi.org/10.1177/26349795241291369
- Encouraging critical thinking and meaningful engagement in asynchronous discussion forums Research in Teacher Education. 12 (1), pp. 6-11. https://doi.org/10.15123/uel.8xvyv