Early Years ICT
Posted by kirsteen 26 10 2006I was in one of our early year centres yesterday and thought I would watch to see how the 3 and 4 year olds were using ICT. On the kidsmart computer there were 3 children squeezed onto the bench. From the desktop they were selecting the game they wanted and without any adult intervention found their favourite game and set it up for two players. The other computer had the digital blue camera and again with no adult assistance the children were taking pictures with it. They even put it back in its cradle and were able to download the pictures. They could even find which special effects they wanted and could add them to their picture/ Althought there was an adult there speaking with them they mostly did all this by themselves. There was also one child on the interactive whiteboard again happily playing away with no adult intervention. They were very familiar with the activity and knew exactly what to do. I do now know why they go through so many pens for the board as the children bang them against the board. It got me thinking about the skills these children have at aged 3 and 4 and how that works with the transition to school. When they have had so much freedom with ICT in nursery what happens in a P1 class?
Maybe need to think about using the promethean wand to avoid the broken pen problem. In terms of transition, I suspect the answer lies in shameless self-promotion. I know that you have started your early years moodle site. Perhaps we need to look at getting more examples of good practice on it and then actively promoting it with primary colleagues who I hope will feel stimulated into extending the ICT skills of teh kids rather than starting again from scratch.
[…] Over at ClacksBlog, Kirsteen is talking about how much freedom some of their Pre 5 kids have when using ICT. Should we be learning from this, and figuring out how deal with prior knowledge and experience better later on in our kids education? […]
I very impressed at the skill level of these children, it sounds like they’re having lots of fun too. It would be interesting to hear the views from some Primary 1 teachers on how the children use and play with ICT in the nurseries.
I completely agree about it being important to think more about the ICT skills pre-school children have when they move up into primary one. I work in a pre-school unit and often feel really disappointed when I see them being ‘taught’ things they could competently do in nursery (often independently too!)
The other important and positive point to make about ICT in pre-school, and it is so obvious in what you have described, is the activities are fun and meaningful to the children which not only develops their ICT skills but also their independence. It also gives them a sense of ownership of their learning.
I would be really interested in finding out more about how ICT is used in your early years settings. Would it be possible to contact some of them?
[…] I often feel really disappointed when you see primary children being ‘taught’ ICT skills they were competently and independently displaying at three/four years old in pre-five. Kirsteen Carmichael has described some examples from one of her early years settings. This again highlights the skills pre-school children are developing through the exciting opportunities early years staff are providing. […]
ICT gene?
Do you think that children are developing a new ICT gene, or maybe we all have this super ICT brain cell but it is not very well connected in some people!