58 58 APPS FOR BABIES: IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE AND POLICY Ben Fletcher-Watson The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland 100 Renfrew Street Glasgow, G2 3DB, UK b.fletcherwatson@rcs.ac.uk ABSTRACT Few Early Years app developers have embraced models of best practice from other domains, but many long-standing debates from such areas – human rights for babies; entertainment versus education; the legitimacy / dangers of exposing the young to technology (see for example Buckingham 2002) – are now emerging in the new field of digital arts. Researchers thus have an opportunity to influence both policy and practice in a touchscreen world. Using examples from theatre and television for babies, this paper explores how partnerships between universities and app developers could contribute to commercial success, as well as artistic, educational and ethical rigour. KEYWORDS: Apps, Early Years, Digital Arts 1 INTRODUCTION Digital arts for Early Years (children from birth to three) have exploded in popularity since the launch of the iPad in 2010 and the Motorola Xoom in 2011. Almost 50m tablet computers were sold worldwide in the first quarter of 2013 alone (data from idc.com). Today, more than a quarter of adults in the USA have downloaded apps for their children, and products for preschoolers now make up a majority of Education apps for sale in Apple’s App Store (Shuler et al. 2012). The most significant factor in the success of iPads with very young children is that they cater for multiple competencies on a single portable device. Users can switch at will between activities which promote varying skills, from literacy to hand-eye coordination, from joint attention to imitative role play. These devices can thus be described as ‘an electronic “activity centre”, which has the form of a tablet’ (Markopoulos & Bekker 2003, p.142). However, while the unit itself is created by a single manufacturer, the apps which provide the content are produced by many thousands of developers, ranging from lone amateurs to massive multi-national corporations. This heterogeneity is manifested in the vastly differing styles of apps, even within a single genre such as games or storybooks. Few app developers making products for babies and toddlers have yet embraced the emerging models of best practice from other art forms for the very young, such as Theatre for Early Years (TEY) and pre- school television, but many long-standing debates from such areas – developmental suitability; entertainment versus education; the dangers of exposing the young to technology – are now emerging in the new field of digital arts. Researchers have an important role to play in providing a robust evidence