This review examines the design cycles of innovation in response to changing policy, technological and practical imperatives. It begins with the initial creation of an information and communication technology course in an early childhood teacher education program and describes its evolution into a contemporary topic. Program changes occur because of policy-driven trends, including the expansion of the definition of what constitutes technology and the incorporation of innovations into curricula and pedagogical practices. We characterize these changes in three design cycles. In the first cycle, courses to prepare preservice teachers for early childhood centers focused primarily on computer-based skills. In the second cycle, new technologies were integrated into the curricula and teaching programs and incorporated into the practicum. In the third cycle, the principles and practices inherent to science, technology, engineering and mathematics ( stem ) education were adopted to extend the role of new technologies in contemporary curricula and pedagogies. These new learning ecologies were characterized by the application of inter-disciplinary knowledge in authentic learning contexts. The reviewed case studies included students in three new technologies course projects in an early childhood teacher education program. The findings revealed that early childhood preservice teachers expected more opportunities to practice and apply new technologies in innovative learning spaces focused on stem learning. Furthermore, they believed that university teacher education courses should be applicable to practice-based contexts. The implications of this review inform the process of change in the design of teacher education programs from technology-based learning to the pedagogical innovations needed to prepare future teachers. It illustrates that new technologies for learning should consider changing learning ecologies in their design and implementation, and should support early childhood teachers in understanding and using child-centered pedagogical approaches.

In response to dominant discourses of quality and an over-reliance on humancentric practice, the Learning with Place framework emerges as an innovative way to rethink practices, structures, and policies within education and beyond. ‘Learning with Place’ views the local Place as agentic, recognising Place as inclusive of local First Nations knowledges and stories, histories and the more-than-human (for example, landforms, waterways, animals, insects, flora, and fauna). Through ‘Learning with Place’, deep relationships with the local Place are generated and these relationships become the catalyst for actions and decision-making regarding caring for/with local Place. This article offers an example of ‘Learning with Place’ in action through an early childhood teacher education program and shares ways in which the framework can be utilised in multiple contexts and disciplines.

There has been much discussion about the high performance of East Asian students in international high stakes testing, but little attention has been paid to their lifeworlds beyond school. In this article we explore findings from a survey of 627 Year 4 children (nine and ten years old) in three global cities (Hong Kong, Singapore, and Melbourne), focusing on their out-of-school activities as one aspect of their lifeworlds. The findings indicate that the most common activities in each location were comparable. Since the activities in the three locations were largely similar, the findings problematise East/West binaries which have been a feature of research and discussions in this area.