‘The Digital Book Project’: empowering preservice teachers in early childhood education with a repertoire of children’s books

The authors introduce a Digital Book Project that was implemented in an early childhood literacy course for preservice teachers. The project required preservice teachers to explore digital libraries to build a repertoire of high-quality children’s literature that they could one day place in their own classroom libraries. The purpose of this study is to examine how a Digital Book Project influenced teacher candidates’ perspectives of early childhood classroom libraries. Specifically, it investigates how leveraging technology can support teacher candidates’ appreciation for diverse books from a broad range of genres, and how that might influence their selection and instructional application of children’s literature in their future classrooms. The authors describe the project’s design and student perspectives, and conclude with insights on how digital libraries can be used in hybrid and online teacher preparation courses in a post-COVID19 world.Key Words: multicultural education, children’s literature, digital libraries, classroom libraries, early childhood education.