1 Introduction

The ways we demonstrate our literacies today, particularly as producers and sharers of information, have shifted in response to the opportunities for participation in a globalised economy and with the affordances of ever-changing technologies. Globally, this shift has significant social, economic, political and cultural implications, making imperative the development of proficient skills, knowledge and understandings in the production and dissemination of digital content (Brandt, 2015; Kress, 2003). But what are these skills and understandings and this knowledge? In educational settings, teachers require guidance in understanding the proficiencies and curricula opportunities that enable children’s production of digital content, which includes the earliest years of school.

Equitable access to digital resources and attainment of digital skills within schools is particularly important given the disparities in access in Australia to digital technologies and skills. According to the Australian Digital Inclusion Index, 11.5% of Australians are excluded from digital services and lack confidence in using digital technology (Thomas et al., 2021). Furthermore, even with access to technology, there can be limitations in their use, and for children, there can be limitations in time spent interacting with adults when using digital technologies. From these perspectives, the responsibility lies with the government to develop policy and curricula that can support teachers to develop learners’ requisite digital skills, knowledge and understandings for participation in society, both in their immediate settings and into their futures. Education systems, schools and teachers then have the responsibility to interpret these documents in connection with the needs of their learners.

This paper offers a critique on the ways the Australian Curriculum, specifically the Australian Curriculum: English, Digital Technologies and general capabilities in Literacy and Digital Literacy, position the teaching of digital text production for learners in their first 3 years of formal school (Foundation to Year 2) in Australia. The paper then offers implications of these curriculum directives for teachers. With early literacy policy in Australia centring on print-based proficiencies and more research capturing classroom digital literacy practices for older children, our focus on the first 3 years of school responds to the growing demand for educator guidance in supporting the digital proficiencies of young children (5–8 years old). Principles of New Literacies theories provide a lens for our critique as we focus on the defining technologies for literacy, new literacies practices, strategic knowledge required to engage with these technologies and the central role of the educator (Leu et al., 2017).

2 New Literacies theories

New Literacies theories are underpinned by a set of principles supporting the view that the Internet and related tools are the defining technology of our times (Leu, 2002; Leu & Kinzer, 2003; Leu et al., 2004). Leu and colleagues argue that these technologies reshape the nature of being literate beyond paper-based reading and writing, beyond audiences bound by local geographies and beyond limitations on who can be a producer of text. Proposed in New Literacies theories is that the texts of today engage new social practices and require new forms of strategic knowledge. These practices include knowledge about the purposes for communication, use of a broad range of resources and participation in non-linear processes. And while change is indeed a defining element of new literacies, those new literacies build upon existing ones (Leu, 2002), bringing into focus the need for proficiencies in foundational literacies, alongside the development of new skills, knowledge and understandings (Kervin et al., 2017; Kress, 2000; Lewin, 1999).

Leu and colleagues (2004, 2017) propose that being literate in the past is different from today, and to be literate in the future will be different again as social practices and technologies for communication evolve. Indeed, ever-growing affordances of digital technologies have generated the potential for multiple kinds of multifaceted and complex texts that utilise increasingly complex modal ensembles (Jewitt, 2013; Leu et al., 2017). And given that anyone can be an author online, the need for robust critical literacies is clear as we navigate information in our work, community and leisure settings (Vasquez et al., 2019). Further, the role of the educator becomes more important than ever in the facilitation of learning experiences that align the teaching of print and on-screen proficiencies (Kervin et al., 2017) in ways that develop in their learners independent, flexible, creative and critical practices that can adapt to meet the needs of the time.

A key principle of New Literacies theories essential to an analysis of mandated curriculum is the role of the educator. Leu and colleagues (2003; 2017) argue that increased demands of working with screen and paper-based texts and the complexity generated by modal affordances require skilful and intentional teaching. Within a New Literacies paradigm, teachers require broadened and sophisticated pedagogies that afford collaboration, problem solving and inquiry-based experiences for learners across a range of contexts (Leu et al., 2017). These pedagogies have long been established; however, they are being utilised by teachers within the parameters of new curricula demands, and with new resources, including digital technologies. Curriculum documents can support teachers’ understanding of required content, and specific to text production, teachers can be guided in their consideration of children’s purposes for production, the resources used in classrooms to produce texts and the processes used by learners to meet their purposes for production.

While New Literacies emerged over two decades ago, its relevance is maintained and expanded with recent scholarship critically exploring the application of existing principles to new social, technological and learning contexts (e.g. Coiro, 2021; Coiro et al., 2019). And while New Literacies scholarship has traditionally and recently focused on online reading (e.g. Forzani et al., 2021, Leu & Kinzer, 2003), we add to the growing body of literature by applying New Literacies to writing and text production. For a critique of curricula, New Literacies affords this expansion through the examination of emerging and multiple forms of communication and social practices, rather than a singular, finite view of literacy (Burnett et al., 2014; Lankshear & Knobel, 2011; Leu et al., 2017). By extension, what counts as literacy and whose literacies count in classrooms (Street, 2003) are expressed in the content of curriculum documents. Our review of literature uses these principles of New Literacies to frame the digital literacies, digital competencies, digital and non-digital resources and literacy pedagogies required to develop children’s proficiencies in digital text production.

3 Literature review

3.1 Defining digital text production

With literacy broadly categorised as productive and receptive communication, the focus of this paper on the productive modes forms part of these literacies. The productive modes of literacy require far more than the assemblage of only words on a page or screen, and scholars have called for new ways of conceptualising the act of writing (Brownell, 2021; Kervin & Comber, 2021; Kuby et al., 2015; Sefton-Green, 2021; Zapata et al., 2018). In response, adopted in this paper is the term “text production” rather than “writing” because it encapsulates the diversity of text forms people use to communicate. The term “digital text production” is then used to describe the non-linear processes of planning, making or designing, reviewing, editing and refining texts using digital resources and the subsequent sharing of those texts using the affordances of digital technologies (Edwards-Groves, 2011; Kervin & Mantei, 2016). To “produce” something multimodally is to use the available semiotic resources (e.g. image, sound, animation and written words) to make products that express meaning in representational ways (Husbye & Zander, 2015; Kervin & Comber, 2021). Alongside the term “production”, “creation” and “construction” are also used in educational research literature to define the nature of writing today. Each term extends understandings about text beyond paper and print by acknowledging digital and multimodal forms. This definition guides the proceeding review of the literature.

3.2 Digital literacies, digital competencies, digital and non-digital resources and literacy pedagogies for text production

The nature of digital technologies and associated communication practices has increased the literacy demands on individuals and, subsequently, literacy education. People’s use of digital technologies for multimodal communication brings about important digital literacies for participation in local and global communities. Drawing on our definition of digital text production, essential are the digital literacies associated with the non-linear processes that digital technologies afford as the user navigates the available resources on the screen to meet their purpose for production (Edwards-Groves, 2011; Kervin & Mantei, 2016). These processes involve competency in understanding the possibilities and constraints of different digital technologies (Kinzer, 2010) and skills in communicating multimodally through semiotic resources (Kress, 2003, 2010). Further, these ways of producing and communicating require critical digital literacies to understand methods of sharing and disseminating content to both local and global audiences (Kress, 2003; Merchant, 2007), consequently requiring an understanding of online safety.

These digital technologies and digital literacy practices are part of many children’s everyday home lives, and their home literacy practices move seamlessly across modes and media (Davidson, 2009; Kumpulainen et al., 2020), including image, sound and animated movement, from page to screen and back again, as they orchestrate print writing with other text forms (Burnett & Merchant, 2018; Jewitt, 2013; McKee & Heydon, 2015). As children develop, they require more sophisticated use of productive modes and media essential for participation in their society and communities. While the meaning of “digital literacies” can be a point of contention, scholars argue that digital literacies involve, yet move beyond the digital competencies (skills and knowledge) of operating devices and software, or even pure information retrieval. Digital literacies also involve using digital and semiotic resources effectively for the social practices of constructing meaning (Buckingham, 2015; Lankshear & Knobel, 2015; Pangrazio, et al., 2020). As such, teachers need to intentionally provide children with opportunities to develop both the digital competencies and digital literacies associated with text production.

To enable teachers to facilitate digital text production opportunities for young children, they need access to resources that allow for print, digital and/or multimodal production and then knowledge, skills and understandings in implementing these resources. And specific to digital literacies, teachers and children require access to a range of devices (e.g. computers and tablets), tools (e.g. cameras) and systems (e.g. software and apps) (Johnstone et al., 2022). With a range of high- and low-quality digital resources on the market claiming to support children’s literacy development (Kervin et al., 2019; Quinn & Bless, 2021), teachers need to make decisions about suitable digital resources based on guidance from policy as well as their pedagogical knowledge. They also require knowledge and understanding of the range of mediums of texts used across local and global digital contexts. Then, within those texts, they need to understand the combination of multimodal elements used to convey meaning and the ways one mode interacts with another (Jewitt, 2013). These understandings enable teachers to support children to produce texts in representational ways that fit their purposes for communicating.

In classrooms, teachers have the potential to be flexible and responsive to the digital technologies and multimodal resources that reflect literacy contexts beyond school, providing children with multiple entry points for learning and expression in ways that are relevant to them (Vasudevan et al., 2010). Studies document the ways teachers respond to these current needs through their organisation of time, space and resources, and the response of children to these experiences (Dowdall, 2020; Kervin & Mantei, 2017). For example, some teachers bring together knowledge of multimodality, digital resources and pedagogical strategies to combine moments of modelling and explanation of digital skills and multimodal literacies, with time for children to apply their learning, explore digital resources and actively produce content (Baroutsis, 2020; Dowdall, 2020; Edwards-Groves, 2012). These strategies and areas of knowledge come together to inform teachers’ literacy pedagogies.

To draw together findings from the literature, Table 1 summarises key points under the categories of digital literacies, digital competencies, digital and non-digital resources and literacy pedagogies as themes for digital text production practices in classrooms. These themes will form the analysis of Australian Curriculum documents described in the methodology.

Table 1 Summary of the digital literacies, digital competencies, digital and non-digital resources and literacy pedagogies for digital text production
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4 The Australian Curriculum

Given the disparities in people’s access to and use of digital technologies, governments have the responsibility to develop policies that support teachers to respond to the needs of all learners, across all contexts in Australian schools. This task involves a focus on the digital capabilities necessary for participation in life beyond school. One challenge in producing policy to meet a brief of this breadth is the range of influences on policy makers. These influences include demand for results in high stakes testing, as well as media and social commentary promoting back-to-basics ideologies that can lead to curricula with narrow conceptualisations of literacy (Merchant, 2007). Even with digital capabilities in curricula, school systems, schools and teachers are responsible for interpreting these requirements and imagining possibilities for digital learning within their own context.

Since 2010, teaching in Australia has been mandated at the federal level by the Australian Curriculum, which is aimed at ensuring a clear and shared understanding of the standard of content to be taught in schools regardless of students’ circumstances, school sector and geographical location (ACARA, 2022a). The curriculum was initially developed and is monitored by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), a government body, in consultation with academics, teachers, industry and community groups. The Australian Curriculum: English (AC:E) was one of the first documents to be released (alongside mathematics, science and history). Then other content areas were released in the years that followed.

Alongside the learning areas (e.g. English), the inclusion of general capabilities in the Australian Curriculum was a significant development as it brought attention to contemporary skills, behaviours and dispositions required across content areas to equip lifelong learners (ACARA, 2022c). The general capabilities comprise literacy, numeracy, digital literacy (preceded by ICT), critical and creative thinking, personal and social capability, ethical understanding and intercultural understanding. Learners are provided with opportunities to engage with the general capabilities in an integrated way across the learning area content.

A review of the Australian Curriculum was authorised by the Australian Government in 2020, 10 years after the first Australian Curriculum documents were released. The process included the review of existing content and drafting of new documents by curriculum experts and educator reference groups (ACARA, 2021). A key aim of the review was “refining, updating and decluttering” curriculum content (ACARA, 2021), an aim heavily promoted in media reports about “paring back the curriculum” (for example, see Carey, 2022). Following the drafting of documents and following public consultation, the revised curriculum documents were released at the beginning of 2022. The concept of a “pared back” curriculum perhaps implies a reduced volume of content and a narrowed focus on what it means to be literate. In contrast, the Australian Curriculum also promotes equitable access to educational outcomes for all students by building on their abilities and interests (ACARA, 2022d).

Previous critiques of curriculum content about literacies in Australia and internationally have found that skills-based approaches have dominated, with some content focusing on processes and dispositions for meaning-making (e.g. Zammit et al., 2022). Additionally, critiques of past versions of the Australian Curriculum have found attempts at integrating the use of digital technology with literacy teaching (Leu et al., 2017). However, Polizzi (2020) argues through a critique of digital literacy content in England’s curriculum that greater knowledge of digital capabilities needs to be acknowledged within the content of curricula. With a focus on digital text production, a revamped curriculum leads us to ask, How is “text production” conceived in this new version? What are the demands on teachers? Learners? How are the demands for being literate today accounted for in the Australian Curriculum and how are the digital needs of all children addressed? What knowledge, skills and understandings do teachers need to implement these curricula requirements? An examination of the opportunities for digital text production in the Australian Curriculum can contribute to an understanding of the support provided to teachers to teach digital proficiencies in the first years of school.

The following research questions informed our analysis of the curriculum documents:

  1. 1.

    Where are the opportunities for digital text production in the Australian Curriculum for the first years of school (Foundation to Year 2)?

  2. 2.

    What knowledge, skills and understandings enable teachers to take up these opportunities?

  3. 3.

    What are the implications for how teachers might implement these opportunities in the classroom?

5 Methodology

The examination of curriculum documents reported in this paper brings attention to information disseminated to schools and teachers about their requirements for teaching digital text production. With the 2022 release of the Australian Curriculum version (v.9.0), changes have been made to the positioning of digital literacies and production, thus while the analysis in this study focuses on v.9.0, consideration has been given to the positioning of digital text production in v.8.4 to understand the new content.

Included in the analysis were Australian Curriculum documents (ACARA, 2022b) that teachers are mandated to use for teaching digital literacies, including documents about literacy and English learning as well as digital technology learning. Table 2 presents the v.9.0 documents in our analysis as well as a description of the key changes to content about digital production from v.8.4.

Table 2 Overview of Australian Curriculum documents that comprised the analysis
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Of note in Table 2 is the change from the ICT general capability to the Digital Literacy general capability as part of the revisions. This shift may explain the removal of the digital technology descriptor from the “Creating Texts” substrand in the AC:E. To support a further understanding of the documents, the structure of each is introduced in the findings.

The initial data set comprised content from the Australian Curriculum documents pertaining to the productive modes of literacy in the first years of school (Foundation, Year 1 and Year 2). This initial data set was further refined to comprise references only to digital literacies and multimodality (acknowledging that multimodal literacies can involve the use of digital resources).

The first iteration of analysis used the literature review, which had been framed by principles of New Literacies theories, to identify themes aligned with digital text production. These were digital literacies, digital competencies, digital and non-digital resources and literacy pedagogies. These themes acted as a heuristic for digital text production, with each theme defined as follows:

  • Digital literacies: Meaning-making or social practices involved in using digital technology

  • Digital competencies: Knowledge and skills in operating or using digital technology

  • Digital and non-digital resources: Digital resources including devices, tools and systems and semiotic resources used for making meaning

  • Literacy pedagogies: Values, knowledge and understandings of the educator, in connection with their design of learning experiences and their practices for facilitating children’s learning.

Initial findings from the data using these themes revealed that guidance about literacy pedagogy is not included in the data as the Australian Curriculum mandates content rather than pedagogies. As such, digital literacies, digital competencies and digital and non-digital resources became categories for deductive analysis. This initial deductive analysis enabled us to address the first research question, where are the opportunities for digital text production in the Australian Curriculum for the first years of school (Foundation to Year 2). Once this deductive analysis was complete, understandings about literacy pedagogies from the literature review were used to inform a set of implications for teachers against each category. This part of the analysis enabled us to address the second and third research questions, what knowledge, skills and understandings enable teachers to take up these opportunities? And what are the implications for how teachers might implement these opportunities in the classroom? These methods of analysis are captured in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1
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Process of using the literature review themes for analysis mapped with the research questions

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As we moved into the final iteration of deductive analysis, the data set contained all references to digital text production coded and interpreted using the findings from the literature review. In this final iteration, informed by a “theoretical” thematic analysis approach (Braun & Clarke, 2006), principles of New Literacies supported us to draw out key themes from the existing analysis, across categories, based on the research questions. What emerged were clear understandings about the opportunities for digital text production and the progression as learners move through year levels at school.

6 Findings

Findings were drawn from the document analysis of the Australian Curriculum: English (AC:E), Australian Curriculum: Technologies (AC:T), Literacy capability, and Digital Literacy capability (ACARA, 2022b). Initially clear were the organisational differences between documents. These differences and similarities are discussed first before discussing the three key themes from the analysis: (1) positioning of “writing” and “text production”; (2) understanding digital literacies and digital competencies for production; and (3) guiding teachers about the purposes, resources and processes for text production.

At an organisational level, an initial analysis revealed that the curriculum documents are structured differently between the learning areas (AC:E and AC:T) and general capabilities (Literacy and Digital Literacy). Both the learning areas and general capabilities include cascading heading levels to describe content. The learning areas (English and Technologies) begin broadly with a level description, followed by content organised into strands and substrands for each year. The substrands are funnelled into content descriptors of mandated content. Elaborations within each content descriptor provide more detail about the content involved. Following these detailed accounts of what to teach are achievement standards that outline requirements related to learners’ proficiency. These inform assessment and reporting protocols.

The general capability (Literacy and Digital Literacy) documents are structured differently. Each begins with a general description of the capability. A learning continuum then maps out the expected accumulation of knowledge, skills and understandings from settings prior to school and into late secondary (Year 10). For each level, the learning continuum lists elements and subelements that describe the skills and content to be integrated with learning area content. There are some structural similarities between the learning areas and general capabilities in that the cascading heading levels of the strands and substrands in the learning areas can be likened to the elements and subelements in the general capabilities. With the Australian Curriculum presented on an online platform, content descriptors in the learning areas have hyperlinks to related content in the general capabilities, with the intention of integrating the capabilities.

Despite these differences and similarities and given the connections between content, there are indeed opportunities for teachers to take up digital text production practices with children in their first years of school. Each of the three themes from the data analysis will now be discussed.

6.1 Positioning of “writing” and “text production”

The ways writing and text production are defined and positioned in the AC:E and literacy capability show an ideological stance that promotes the inclusion of print, digital and multimodal forms of texts in literacy teaching. However, the content within the substrands and elements then positions writing and production as primarily print-based in the first years of school, with some inclusion of digital and multimodal production.

At its broadest level, the level descriptions in the AC:E use the terms “creating” and “viewing”, in addition to “listening”, “reading”, “writing” and “speaking”, potentially positioning literacy as a print-based and multimodal act of communication. This language is consistent with the definition of text and writing from the glossary, applied across the AC:E and Literacy capability, that positions text as including “written, spoken, visual and multimodal forms” and incorporating “sound, print, film, electronic and multimodal representations”. The definition of writing then involves “producing” across “print or digital forms”.

Content in the AC:E particularly focuses on print-based writing (which may be expected), with the inclusion of some content about digital and multimodal production. To illustrate, we refer to the “Creating texts” substrand as the primary source of guidance for teachers about the teaching of writing and production. In the first (and broadest) content descriptor for this substrand, the term “written and/or multimodal text” is included for Year 1 and Year 2. The term has also been added to the achievement standards for these year levels. This inclusion ideologically positions text production as written, digital and multimodal. Digital and multimodal production has been omitted from the wording of the content descriptors for Foundation, which could position text production as moving from print-based writing into the production of both written and multimodal texts. Alternatively, the elaborations for the first (and broadest) content descriptor for Foundation suggests that children “[use] writing and drawing, which may include digital tools”, making it feasible for teachers to assume that digital and multimodal production also applies to the first year of school. Digital text production is also promoted in other strands of the AC:E. For example, a Foundation content descriptor in the “Creating literature” substrand asks children to “Retell and adapt familiar literary texts through play, performance, images and writing”, with the elaboration suggesting children “[sequence] pictures, which may involve the use of digital tools, to retell a story.”

Teachers, then, require knowledge of curriculum content, including the elaborations, to understand the ways print and digital, multimodal production can be brought together in classroom literacy experiences from the first year of school. They also need to understand children’s potential for text production when using digital resources and multimodal text forms to convey meaning and consideration of times within learning sequences when digital production can be meaningfully integrated with print-based writing.

6.2 Understanding digital literacies and digital competencies for production

Analysis across the AC:E, AC:T and Digital Literacy capability shows content involving both digital competencies (e.g. skills and knowledge in operating hardware and software) and digital literacies associated with multimodal production (i.e. for meaning-making). While there are moments in the AC:T when experiences in production involve meaning-making, the focus is heavily placed on digital competencies such as typing, scrolling and navigating, as well as digital and online safety and using digital systems.

The Digital Literacy capability also shows the combination of digital competencies and literacies, with a greater focus on competencies first evident in the definition of digital literacy that foregrounds the document. The Digital Literacy capability now includes “Creating and exchanging” as an element, a change from the ICT capability that provides opportunity for children’s meaning-making and multimodal production. Analysis of the subelements within the “Creating and exchanging” element highlights a focus on digital products and intellectual property, with one subelement focused on using digital tools to convey meaning.

In the previous AC:E, one content descriptor at the end of the “Creating texts” substrand for each year level focused on digital production. These content descriptors involved operational skills and print-based writing experiences on screen (e.g. producing written texts in typed form). In the revised AC:E, these content descriptors have been removed, with some of this content moved to the new Digital Literacy capability to be integrated across learning areas. Excluded from much of the content related to digital and multimodal production is children’s use of specific semiotic resources and their application to different text forms.

Teachers, then, require an understanding of the essential nature of both digital literacies and digital competencies when planning and implementing classroom experiences. They also require skills in integrating content from the Digital Literacy capability across the learning areas, particularly the AC:E. Enablers for teaching digital literacies are knowledge of multimodality, use of the language of multimodality when describing texts and application to the use of digital technologies to convey representational meaning.

6.3 Guiding teachers about the purposes, resources and processes for text production

Curriculum documents are an opportunity to provide guidance to teachers about the purposes, resources and processes that might be incorporated into their teaching of text production. Central to the AC:E is the production of imaginative, informative and persuasive genres, which provides some guidance to teachers about the purposes for children’s texts. Across the AC:T and general capability documents, purposes for production were found to include communication, sharing and exchanging information, school purposes and producing texts for audiences. In the AC:T and general capabilities, the term “communicate” emerged frequently to promote the purpose of children’s production as a communicative process. Terms across documents such as “familiar audience” offer some direction to teachers, but lead to consideration of who “familiar” audiences might be in a digital environment when children can communicate with people across locations.

Resources for multimodal and digital text production were referred to occasionally across the documents, often described through overarching terms. For example, the use of the term “multimodal” provides an opportunity for teachers to provide both digital and non-digital resources, and for children to produce a range of texts (e.g. visual and multimedia texts), using semiotic resources to express representational meaning. However, specific language to describe these semiotic resources is not included (e.g. audio, spacial, gestural). Further, terms including “simple”, “basic”, “common” and “familiar” are used when describing digital resources and their features. However, these terms raise questions about what these resources and features might be. For example, what are “simple” or “basic” digital tools and features for children when digital technologies are complex? Are digital resources “common” and “familiar” if children use them within their homes and communities?

Processes for print writing are clearer in the AC:E, with limited information about the non-linear processes for digital and multimodal text production. For example, one elaboration for the AC:E suggests that children “[create] digital images and [compose] a story or information sequence on screen using images and captions”. This content provides some guidance about potential digital experiences for learners. Then, teachers are required to use their pedagogical knowledge to determine processes for production.

To enable teachers to implement digital text production experiences, they require knowledge of the variance in digital texts based on purposes for production within the AC:E (i.e. imaginative, informative and persuasive purposes). Teachers also require knowledge of digital technologies to make decisions about tools that are “common” and “familiar” for young children and the features that make them accessible within their potential for multimodal text production. Teachers also need knowledge of non-linear production processes to apply to the application of chosen digital tools.

7 Discussion and implications

The purpose of this study was to understand the opportunities evident in the Australian Curriculum for teaching text production in the first 3 years of school, responding to the demand for teacher guidance about supporting the digital needs of young learners. Framed by New Literacies, opportunities for teachers to design classroom experiences with digital and paper-based texts were observed with a focus on digital, multimodal text production. The Australian Curriculum: English (AC:E) offers specific places where an educator could combine experiences in working with print and digital, multimodal texts. Then, evident in the Australian Curriculum: Technologies (AC:T) and general capabilities were instances that could lead teachers to integrate children’s digital capabilities with other learning area content. For example, the shift to the new Digital Literacy capability in v.9.0 potentially provides a greater opportunity for the integration of digital content with literacy experiences. Having identified the presence of these opportunities and initially considering the enablers for teachers, this discussion turns to consider implications for future practice and decision-making.

The presence of digital literacies in the Australian Curriculum provides opportunities for teachers to engage children in production practices connected with their home and community experiences (e.g. experiences where children produce a multimedia text for a relative or produce content as part of a digital game). Opportunities related to children’s out-of-school lives allow teachers to connect with the social practices of each child’s culture (Leu et al., 2017) and reflect new understandings of text production. In this way, children are empowered as experts in their own experiences, by producing the kinds of digital, multimodal texts relevant to them (Husbye & Zander, 2015; Vasudevan et al., 2010). On the other hand, the Australian Curriculum has the potential to address digital inequities, by offering teachers an opportunity to support the development of digital capabilities that some children might not otherwise develop.

To take up opportunities for digital text production, teachers, school leaders and school systems must understand the Australian Curriculum requirements and the pedagogical knowledge and skills needed to teach within these requirements. To support these processes, we offer the themes from our heuristic as a framework for understanding and decision-making (see Fig. 2). In what follows, we outline key considerations from the framework and the strands of decision-making required from stakeholders such as the provision of physical resources, allocation of time and financial resourcing.

Fig. 2
figure 2

A framework for digital text production

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Central to the framework in Fig. 2 is the knowledge and understandings teachers require about digital literacies, digital competencies and digital and non-digital resources. The Australian Curriculum documents position both digital literacies (i.e. for meaning-making using semiotic resources) and digital competencies (e.g. operating digital devices and software) as important for digital text production. As such, teachers require professional learning that supports their knowledge about the skills for operating technology, as well as pedagogical knowledge about processes for production. Similar to past critiques of the Australian Curriculum (Leu et al., 2017), our analysis found an attempt to incorporate digital literacies with Australian Curriculum content. However, similar to Zammit et al.’s (2022) more recent critique of Australian and international curriculum, we found that skills dominate within the digital context of our analysis with less content in the Australian Curriculum focused on meaning-making practices associated with multimodality. As digital literacies go beyond digital competencies to the use of digital technology for meaning-making (Buckingham, 2015; Lankshear & Knobel, 2015; Pangrazio, et al., 2020), teachers need to build their knowledge of multimodality and associated language to apply alongside the teaching of digital competencies. For example, in practice, this might involve modelling the navigation of links on screen, while also demonstrating the use of colour, vector and perspective to influence the visual meaning conveyed in digital texts.

As Leu et al. (2017) acknowledge, new literacies and the use of digital technologies require new strategic knowledge, particularly when communicating with audiences beyond their immediate environment. A key area of strategic knowledge in digital literacies is the application of non-linear processes for text production. While the Australian Curriculum documents offer opportunities for teachers to design digital text production experiences, advice about non-linear processes for producing texts is limited, requiring teachers to develop and apply their own pedagogical knowledge. Comparative to established processes for writing, digital text production requires purposeful teaching and application of processes that include planning, designing, reviewing, editing, refining and sharing with an audience (Edwards-Groves, 2011; Kervin & Mantei, 2016). Teachers need to develop knowledge about these processes and then apply the knowledge to their implementation of the Australian Curriculum requirements for digital text production.

Teachers make decisions about digital resources and their use alongside other non-digital resources such as pencils, paper, exercise books and arts-based materials. Ambiguous terms in the Australian Curriculum such as “simple”, “basic”, “common” and “familiar” digital tools and features pose challenges for teachers and require further curricula guidance about what these technologies and features might be. Consequently, teachers require their own understanding, as well as shared understanding with peers about the digital technologies that are “common” and “familiar” in the lives of children and those they will potentially encounter in their future. In considering what might be deemed “simple” and “basic” with complex digital systems, teachers also require support in understanding the potential of digital resources at different stages of development so they can effectively appraise tools for their inclusion in literacy experiences (Kervin et al., 2019; Quinn and Bliss, 2021), for example, determining the devices and software that are developmentally appropriate for young children to navigate. Resource allocation in schools can influence teachers’ decisions. As such, school and system investment in digital resources and infrastructure in consultation with teachers must be prioritised, as well as professional learning in utilising these resources for literacy learning.

As with any learning, the educator remains critical in the design and facilitation of digital text production experiences (Leu & Kinzer, 2003; Leu et al., 2017). Literacy pedagogies wrap around the framework in Fig. 2 as they have an interconnected role with digital literacies, digital competencies and digital and non-digital resources. The pedagogies required for digital text production involve demonstrating non-linear processes and use of resources (both digital and semiotic), which also involves the intentional use of language for multimodality (Edwards-Groves, 2011, 2012). Teachers then need to facilitate time for children to apply their learning to their production of their own digital texts. Organisation of time to allow for this demonstration and application is essential (Baroutsis, 2020; Dowdall, 2020), particularly alongside and with print-based writing experiences. This combination of print and digital production involves sophisticated layering of foundational skills with new skills, knowledge and understandings (Kervin et al., 2017; Kress, 2000; Lewin, 1999) across modes and mediums. Depending on intent and learning sequences, teachers will move between experiences in producing purely written texts, then at other times, digital multimodal texts, then times when both mediums come together. Professional development is essential for teachers to develop their knowledge and language of multimodality and approaches for effectively sequencing and integrating print and digital, multimodal text production experiences.

Our analysis and framework for digital text production highlight implications for teachers and the requisite knowledge and skills for implementing the Australian Curriculum requirements. Emerging from these implications are key decision-making strands encompassing the provision of physical resources, prioritisation of time and financial resourcing. These strands necessitate commitment from teachers, school leaders and school systems. Decisions about physical resources involve providing developmentally appropriate digital technologies, devices, tools and systems for producing digital, multimodal texts. Teacher knowledge is central in the implementation of digital resources, so school systems and leaders then need to allocate time for teachers to learn about these resources, time to develop shared understandings and agreed practices for implementation and time to incorporate them into their planning. Achieving these priorities requires adequate financial resourcing for digital resources, professional learning for teachers and time for teacher planning.

8 Conclusion

For teachers in the first years of school, this paper shows that multiple opportunities are available in the Australian Curriculum to plan for and implement digital, multimodal text production experiences in their classrooms. However, for teachers to capitalise on these opportunities, school leaders, and indeed school systems, need to acknowledge the requirement for developing children’s digital capabilities in the early years of primary school and the knowledge, skills and understandings that enable teachers to teach these capabilities. This acknowledgement then calls for a digital strategy to be developed by schools and systems. This digital strategy needs to include increased access to digital resources and infrastructure in classrooms that expands young children’s learning in effectively producing digital texts using multimodal affordances. The strategy then needs to support teachers through the provision of professional learning embedded within their context that involves both pedagogical content knowledge and time to apply this knowledge to their planning. Only then can the full potential of these opportunities for digital text production in the Australian Curriculum be realised in classrooms.