ICT can help specially-abled Students

Why does ICT matter in Early Childhood Education?

1. We live in a world where technological innovation is extremely rapid

Alright! This is quite an obvious one, but what this means for people like you who work in the educational system is that you need to be committed to the task of helping children develop their capabilities in accessing and retrieving information - that is, becoming a lifelong learner. It is important that you help generate new knowledge from established knowledge.

There are many terms which can be used for this - technology literacy, digital literacy, ICT literacy or ICT capable. Whichever one you use, you need to remember that it involves more than just being able to use ICT techniques. To be any of these, a child needs to be able to have the disposition to construct ICT solutions to problems that are relevant to the context and are based on the knowledge of the opportunities and limitation of the systems available.

Therefore, you need to provide ICT activities that encourage children to explore the technological affordances of a variety of ICT tools and encourage them to apply them - especially in play.

2. An ICT-Integrated Society

As you learnt in the first point discussed, it is a technological society that is integrated with ICT throughout our lives. As being part of the education system you might already be aware that its role is to prepare children for their future in society. Over the several years it has taken for this to evolve teachers like you and I have come to see the need for an ICT-integrated curriculum in the Early Years.

Children need to finding out and identifying the uses of technology in their everyday lives in addition to using computers and programmed toys such as beebots to support their learning.

Children's play is an ideal activity for this occur as ICT can be integrated in activities. You need to consider drawing attention to things such as corner washing machines and encouraging the use of pretend - or functioning - technologies such as telephones, cash registers etc. Functioning computers can be used too.

A final reason for an integrated curriculum is the recognition that it is more consistent with the notion of ICT resources as tools for learning. You need to help children apply these tools for particular purposes when required.

3. Progression from the Early Years through the National Curriculum

The Australian Curriculum Foundation - Year 2 builds on the development of child ICT capability formed in early childhood education. 

Early Childhood Education lays the foundation for learning areas so there should be no reason why it shouldn't do the same for ICT capability. As it can be seen in the images below, the use of ICT is covered in Outcome 5 in the EYLF but it also appears in Outcome 4 under the context of children as 'confident and involved learners'. It also shows (Figure 2) how ICT capability needs to progress throughout primary education.

It is important then that you achieve this by practicing evidence based ICT teaching strategies that will not only establish a starting point for learning in ICT, but also be transparent among your children's future educators. Progression in ICT capability begins with:

• Planning for progression - making use of the EYLF goals and that of the national curriculum outcomes;
• Focusing on what you need to know in terms of competence in ICT;
• Choosing the right ICT tools and resources - it must challenge children intellectually;
• Match these to intended learning outcomes.