Kelly Bittner

Senior Lecturer, Early Childhood
PhD, Master of Early Childhood, Grad Cert Research Methods, Bachelor of Education (Early Childhood Education)

Email: kelly.bittner@nd.edu.au

Biography

Dr Kelly Bittner is Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood. Her research primarily focuses on how digital technologies impact young children’s learning, development and wellbeing. This includes a focus on AI-enables tools that are used by young children and their adults, and the systems needed to support effective, safe and ethical use. At the centre of this work is consideration of agency, voice and humanness in and AI-enabled world. Her research also focuses early mathematical and scientific thinking and learning, and STEM experiences in the early childhood years.

Kelly’s previous academic experience includes a Post-Doctoral Research fellowship with the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child, Senior Lecturer and Post Graduate Program Coordinator with Southern Cross University, and more than a decade as a lecturer and researcher with Macquarie University. She has also held senior research positions with the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) and the Australian Children's Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA).

Prior to her work as an academic, Kelly was engaged in a wide range of roles across the education sector. This included working as an early childhood teacher and service director in Australia and New Zealand, primary school teaching in the UK, and also working in early childhood licensing and accreditation at both state and federal levels.
Teaching areas
- Early Childhood Education and Care
Research expertise and supervision
- Digital technology
- Early mathematics
- Early science
- Early STEM
- Early childhood education
- Early childhood workforce
Book chapters
(Publishing as Kelly Bittner and Kelly Johnston)
- Jegodtka, A., Schechner, L., & Johnston, K. (2020). ‘Let’s roll the dice’: Exploring amounts, counting, transcoding and the investigation of invariance and variance. In O. Thiel, E. Severina, & B. Perry (Eds). Mathematics in early childhood: Research, reflexive practice and innovative. London: Routledge.
- Johnston, K., Highfield, K., & Hadley, F. (2019). Transition to school: Integrating technology in an early childhood service to support children’s agency. In C. Gray and I. Palaiologou (Eds). Early learning in the digital age. SAGE.
- Johnston, K., & Highfield, K. (2017). Technology in outdoor play. In L. Arnott (Ed.). Digital technologies and learning in the early years. SAGE.
Journal articles and proceedings
(Publishing as Kelly Bittner and Kelly Johnston)
- Bittner, K., Highfield, K., & Thompson, N. (in press). Digital technologies for early childhood assessment and evaluation: Emerging implications in a GenAI world. AI, Brain and Child.
- Papic, M., Bittner, K., & Minson, V. (2025). Investigating virtual reality as a resource to enhance early childhood initial teacher education: A scoping review. Early Childhood Education Journal. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-025-01942-7
- Bittner, K. (2024). Listening, empowering and innovating – Reflections from the AJEC symposium 2024. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 49(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/18369124125617
- Johnston, K. (2023). The ‘aha!’ moment: Early childhood learning trajectories. Every Child, 29(2).
- Johnston, K., Kervin, L., & Wyeth, P. (2022). STEM, STEAM and makerspaces in early childhood: A scoping review. Sustainability, 14(20).
- Johnston, K., Kervin, L., & Wyeth, P. (2022). Defining digital technology. Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child Blog. May, 2022.
- O’Conner, J., Fotakopoulou, O., Bittner, K., Kewalramani, S., & Ludgate, S. (2022). Resisting hyperreality? Talking to young children about YouTube and YouTube kids. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood.
- Bittner, K. (2021). Engagement and immersion in digital play: Supporting young children’s digital wellbeing. Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(19), 10179. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph181910179
- Johnston, K. (2021). Creating space for equity in early childhood educator’s participation in documentation, assessment and evaluation. European Early Childhood Research Journal.
- Bittner, K., & Bull, R. (2021). Understanding educator attitudes towards, and perceptions of, mathematics in early childhood. Journal of Early Childhood Research.
- Johnston, K., & Degotardi, S. (2020). More than ‘more’: Quantity and quality of mathematical language used by educators in mealtimes with very young children. International Journal of Early Years Education. DOI:10.1080/09669760.2020.1848529
- Bittner, K. (2019). Digital technology as a tool to support children and educators as co-learners. Global Studies of Childhood, 9(4), 306-317. DOI: 10.1177/2043610619871571
- Bittner, K., Hadley, F., & Waniganayake, M. (2019). Practitioner inquiry as a professional learning strategy to support technology integration in early learning centres: Building understanding through Rogoff’s planes of analysis. Professional Development in Education, 46(1), 49-64. DOI: 10.1080/19415257.2019.1647871
- Degotardi, S., Johnston, K., Little, H., Colliver, Y., & Hadley, F. (2019). "This is a learning opportunity": How parent-child interactions and exhibit design foster the museum learning of prior-to-school aged children. Visitor Studies, 22(2), 171-191.DOI: 10.1080/10645578.2019.1664849
- Bittner, K., Hadley, F., & Highfield, K. (2018). Supporting young children as digital citizens: The importance of shared understandings of technology to support integration of play-based learning. British Journal of Educational Technology, 49(5), 896-910. DOI: 10.1111/bjet.12664
Professional affiliations
- Associate Editor - Early Childhood Development and Care
- Associate Investigator - ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child
- Adjunct Senior Research Fellow - Children's Voice Centre at Charles Sturt University
- Adjunct Senior Lecturer - Southern Cross University
- Committee Member - Australasian Journal of Early Childhood.