Guidance for Practitioners on Appropriate Technology Education in Early Childhood

The use of ICT in the early years has the potential to enhance educational opportunities for young children. Appropriate ICT can encourage purposeful and exploratory play. Among other things it can encourage discussion, creativity, problem solving, risk-taking and flexible thinking. This can all be achieved in a play centred and responsive environment. However, it does demand that early years educators are well trained and skilled in the appropriate uses of ICT with young children. Staff should therefore seek help and support to develop their skills, as well as their use of appropriate literature and research.

Supporting practitioners: training and resources
Confidence is beginning to grow among many early childhood educators as they acquire resources and training. Computer print has transformed many nursery displays, enriching the children's print and number environment. These are significant developments that may contribute to supporting children's emergent literacy and numeracy. With the right support and training for staff, ICT applications can be used to support learning right across the curriculum. A wide range of software and hardware can be applied to promote communication between children, between children and their parents/carers and practitioners, and between practitioners and parents. In the UK, programmable toys are now commonly available to children as 'symbolic objects to think with' (Papert, 1982). However, it has to be acknowledged that adults working in early years settings have suffered from a lack of resources and poor training opportunities in ICT. It is only recently that there has been a growth in the resources for ICT but this is fragmented and unevenly distributed across different providers throughout Europe.

The number and variety of educational computer programmes (software) on offer has certainly increased a great deal. But given the range of computer hardware and software that is now available on the educational and toy market it has become more and more difficult for early childhood educators to make informed choices between them. There is a need to provide early educators with guidance that assists in identifying the most appropriate applications of ICT. DATEC's publication of exemplars and guidance material for parents and early childhood educators is therefore calculated to provide for a pressing community need.

In our research and meetings with the DATEC partners over the last two years a growing consensus has emerged regarding the most appropriate forms that ICT education should currently take in early childhood. In common with the UK Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage (CGFS) and the National Curriculum (DfEE/QCA, 2000) we have agreed that the ICT curriculum should have two separate strands:

• The first related to developing an 'emergent technological literacy' and children's understanding of the uses of ICT.
• The second to developing children's practical capability with the tools that ICT offers.

We are acutely aware that the adults who support the children's learning have to have these understandings as a prerequisite to supporting children in developing them.

Throughout Europe we live in highly technological societies and for the vast majority, the use of mobile telephones, cash points, and Personal Computers have become a common part of everyday life. As the UK 'Early Learning Goals' in the CGFS now suggest, before children complete their 5th year they should be finding out about, and identifying the uses of technology in their everyday lives, and they should also be using computers and programmed toys to support their learning. The CGFS also usefully suggests that we should encourage children to observe and talk about the uses of ICT in the environment, for example, on local walks adults can talk with children about traffic lights, telephones, street lights or bar-code scanners which identify prices in shops. The CGFS is embedded within a play-centred and child-centred philosophy of early education where appropriate pedagogies of modelling, demonstrating, good adult-child interaction and responsive relations are paramount, we promote this philosophy throughout our ICT guidance for practitioners.

In adopting this particular perspective we have also accepted the place of ICT education within a broader framework of the technology curriculum. ICT artefacts (hardware and software applications) are seen as 'tools' that are designed and made to serve particular purposes, and it is primarily in terms of these purposes that they should be open to evaluation. Just like any other technological artefacts the tools of ICT carry values, they have been designed to serve particular social needs, they have particular uses and these must be identified in determining their educational value.

The idea of ICT providing 'tools' is therefore an appropriate, powerful and empowering metaphor for use in the early years, but as educators we should also be aware of its limitations. While technologies are the product of our cultures they also influence them, and even in the early years we can begin to encourage children to develop a critical awareness.

Identifying good ICT practice
Children should have the opportunity to explore and 'play' with the computer as they do with other forms of ICT (e.g. cassette recorders), from an early age and as a pre-requisite to more structured use of the technology. The literature review and primary research that has been carried out by us for DATEC during the past 2 years have led us to identify eight general principles for determining the appropriateness of ICT applications to be applied in the early years. We hope that these will not be interpreted in a simplistic way, but that staff will use these points to engage in a discussion about each area and how it might fit into the general philosophy and practice of the particular setting. The guidance might also inform the ICT policy of the setting or be used as a tool to evaluate software programmes or other ICT applications:

1. Applications should be educational.
An application is defined here as a 'use' of ICT e.g. the use of a pretend mobile telephone in socio-dramatic play, or a computer programme such as Build a Bug (from Millie's Math House, Edmark) integrated as a part of a more general project. The applications employed in the early years should be educational in nature - this effectively excludes all those applications where clear learning aims cannot be identified. However entertaining, most arcade type games provide little encouragement of creativity, or indeed any other worthwhile learning outcome. This is not to suggest that applications should not be fun or enjoyable or used for leisure, only that they should be carefully chosen to have some educational potential as well. One of the most important implications of the emphasis that we place here on 'applications' is that ICT products that were not originally intended for educational purposes may sometimes be effectively applied educationally by creative early childhood practitioners.

We are aware that many settings use language and number drill and practice programmes, but have found that these have very narrow educational aims (e.g. practising addition or learning colours). We would suggest that these be used with caution as they promote a very directive form of teaching, normally with the use of an external reward (a smiling face, a tick or a funny sound). Over reliance on these kinds of programme might lead to a reduction in children's intrinsic motivation to learn. In any event there can be more interesting ways of learning about these things! (See point 4 below). Children need a variety of applications that encourage a range of development including creativity, self-expression and language. Applications should be employed after a thorough discussion with staff (and parents where this is possible) about the educational benefits and constraints of the particular application.

2. Encouraging collaboration
The best applications provide a valuable means of encouraging collaboration and in the early years we know that activities that provide contexts for collaboration are especially important. Working alone as well as in collaboration and in a range of other ways in interacting with technology is important too. However, according to Light and Butterworth (1992) 'joint attention' and 'children learning to share' and/or 'engaged jointly' provides a better cognitive challenge for young children. Socio-dramatic play provides a context for children to share representations and to articulate their thinking, bringing to consciousness ideas that they are still only beginning to grasp intuitively (Hoyles, 1985). Many screen based applications offer the same possibilities in terms of symbolic manipulation although adult intervention is usually needed to gain the most from software designed to facilitate collaborative problem solving, drawing, or construction. Collaboration is also considered important in providing opportunities for cognitive conflict as efforts are made to reach consensus (Doise and Mugny 1984)), and for the co-construction of potential solutions in the creative processes of problem solving (Forman, 1989).

3. Integration and play through ICT
ICT applications should be integrated as far as possible with other established early years practices (play, project work) which make the curriculum relevant to the children. The adequacy of much of the ICT educational provision currently provided in schools is open to question in this regard. Primary schools are increasingly opting for computer suites, and this often discourages the integration of ICT with the rest of the curriculum. Desktop computers and digital artefacts as a natural part of the learning environment. If children are to understand ICT they need to see it used in a meaningful context, and for real purposes. We have seen excellent examples where children have used a draw programme to make part of a birthday card and then completed it using other material. Another example is where adults have taken children with them to the laundry room and explained and discussed the programme cycles for hot and cold washes. This gives children an understanding of the purposes and uses of ICT as a tool to solve real problems.

Play is usefully considered a 'leading activity' for young children; it is widely considered to be a driving force in the child's development of new forms of motivation and action. Play and imitation are primary contexts for representational and symbolic behaviour, and role-play is therefore central to the processes of learning in the early years. Artefacts such as toys and other 'manipulables' are important because they provide symbols for the children to play with. When children play with both functioning and pretend technological artefacts such as telephones or photocopiers they serve the same purpose. Computer applications also provide a means by which children may engage and interact with a much wider range of 'virtual' artefacts and environments than would otherwise be possible.

This is clearly recognised in the context of emergent literacy and numeracy where educators specifically encourage the child to recognise the value of using symbols to represent artefacts and to quantify them. But a great deal can be done to promote these processes in the wider play context and in children's play with technological toys.

Another very important reason for employing an integrated approach to ICT is the recognition that this is more consistent with the notion of ICT products as tools. Tools are designed to be applied for particular purposes when required, they are not usually designed for continuous use for their own sake. The common practice of operating a rota for children to gain access to computers may be seen as entirely contrary to this approach. Equally inappropriate is the common practice of providing access to ICT as a reward (or a punishment).

4. The child should be in control
Generally, applications should be controlled by the child, they should not control the child's interaction through programmed learning or any other behaviourist device. While the evidence suggests that applications of this kind may be effective in developing a range of skills including children's alphabet and phonic skills, counting and early number concepts, the approach is contrary to popular conceptions of good educational practice. There is a real consensus among informed early childhood educators across Europe regarding the importance of developing children's emergent awareness and positive disposition towards literacy and numeracy, and it may very well be the case that programmed learning approaches can operate against these principles. A similar case can be made against applications that incorporate 'closed' problem solving; problems that have only one solution. One of the best strategies for solving this sort of problem is simply to try every possible option until you find the right one and this is also the strategy that most children adopt. The irony is that this is precisely the strategy that computers are usually designed to adopt, and given the speed at which they can test the outcomes it is a strategy that they excel in. The kinds of problems that computers struggle with are the sort that have multiple solutions and where the real intellectual challenge is to clarify the problem sufficiently well to recognise when the best solution has been found. Arguably it is just this sort of creative problem solving we should be giving children practice in.

5. Applications should be transparent and intuitive
As far as possible, applications should be selected that provide 'transparency'; their functions should be clearly defined and intuitive. What this normally means in practice is that the application completes each clearly defined task in a single operation. The intuitive nature of the 'drag and drop' facility is a good example of this kind of 'hands on' technology. Another good example of this functional transparency is provided by the Sony Mavica digital camera that saves images on a floppy disk. When the child (or adult) has taken a photograph, they can remove the disk (with the photo on it) and when they put it into the computer, a double-click brings the picture directly onto the screen.

6. Applications should not contain violence or stereotyping
Unfortunately we cannot assume that all of the software finding its way into early years contexts is 'tasteful and dignified' but all applications should satisfy (for example) the advertising standards authority code of practice. What we are suggesting here is that where applications fail to meet these criteria it would be difficult to justify their use in any educational context.

7. Awareness of health and safety issues
Serious concerns have been voiced about the consequences of encouraging the extended use of desktop computers by young children. We have therefore become convinced that a typical use of any desktop computer application by a child should be comparatively short, normally not extending beyond 10-20 minutes in the case of 3 year olds. This might be extended to a maximum of 40 minutes by the age of eight. Clearly, if a child or group of children is totally engaged in an activity and the completion of this requires a longer period at the computer this should be allowed, but it would not be desirable to encourage children to do this regularly. Apart from the very significant difficulties of providing ergonomic, yet communal workstations, these concerns relate to the hazards of repetitive strain injury, carpal tunnel damage, effects upon sight, obesity, and the possible risks of radiation exposure from monitors. All of these hazards are well documented in the case of usage by adults but little research has been conducted to identify the implications for the youngest children at this early stage of their physical development. 

The evidence regarding the degree of risk associated with these hazards remains unclear; but the precedent set by the UK government in discouraging children's use of mobile telephones in schools is instructive. The hazards of that technology were equally unclear yet the government's decision suggested that where we consider the safety of children, the burden of proof should lie on those introducing a new technology into schools rather than those who would urge caution. By limiting the time children spend at computers we can help to avoid some of these dangers for children. Where the computer use is integrated with other activities (and the computer used effectively as a tool) e.g. in socio-dramatic play, modelling, painting etc. children will benefit from greater movement and exercise away from the computer.

8. Educational involvement of parents
Research also suggests that home-school communication leads to better understanding and more positive attitudes by teachers and parents about each other's roles. Many studies have shown that when parents, teachers and children collaborate towards the same goals it leads to the improved academic performance of children (Siraj-Blatchford, I. et al 2001). Schools also report that children show a more positive attitude towards learning and are better behaved. Home-school links or parent involvement is therefore a component of effective schools that merits special consideration. When it is well planned it can promote higher success in pupils and lead to more successful family environments. But many staff are ill equipped to know what kinds of strategies to adopt to foster better home-school relationships. In the United States the large-scale and longitudinal studies have been conducted by Epstein (1996). Applying Epstein's typology, five main types of home-school improvement can be identified:

1. Parenting skills, child development, and home environment for learning.
2. Communications from school to home.
3. Parents as volunteers in school.
4. Involvement in learning activities at home.
5. Decision making, leadership, and governance.

While a great deal is often achieved in terms of 1-3, most early childhood educational settings find 4-5 particularly challenging (Siraj-Blatchford et al 2001). Communication between professional educators and parents is crucial in the early years and a more articulated set of aims between the home and early years setting can lead to better outcomes for children. ICT applications offer a range of possibilities to support the process. Two that we have found particularly interesting have been the use of pre-school websites and visual documentation. Our research shows that currently there is very little knowledge in settings about the children's ICT experiences at home and that this not an area on which parents are normally asked for information.