Digital technologies and media in early learning programs
It was only a few days before the schools’ two-month summer break. I was supplying in a kindergarten class, and we had just come inside for lunch. The children were in various processes of putting on their indoor shoes, washing hands, opening lunch boxes and refilling water bottles.
It was during this busyness that I heard one child and then another direct me to “Put on a show!” “We always watch a show when we eat.”
I paused my search with a child to find her missing shoe to respond to their call to action. “In just a few days you will be on summer holidays and won’t be able to be with your friends at school every day. Right now you do have the chance to visit with the friends at your table. I’m not going to put on a show today so that you have the chance to chat and enjoy one another’s company while you are still at school.”
One child mumbled, “She doesn’t know how to put on a show.” All the others, however, turned to one another and their lunch boxes. A few children started playing impromptu guessing games with others around their table while they ate. When a permanent staff member came through the door after her break, the room was filled with chatter, laughter and eating.
Immediately and without comment she walked over to the computer to pull up a video from YouTube for the children to watch on the smart board. I knew her intent was to help; to keep the children’s pattern as predictable as possible despite having a ‘new’ teacher for the day. I joined her at the computer, letting her know what I had told the children about putting on a show while they ate. The other educator, however, didn’t share my view, and, before I left for my lunchbreak, I watched the lively, animated classroom I had just been a part of transform into silence. Children’s eyes turned away from each other and became transfixed on the screen. Children who were positioned with their backs to the screen rotated their bodies away from their food to take in the show. Their consumption of food changed to consumption of media.
Clearly, as early learning educators, we had different perspectives and goals for the children and ourselves. Having varied perspectives, I believe, is a good thing. Respectful disagreement is the very ingredient that gives us a place to begin conversation and reflection about what we do as educators and why. Differences of opinion can help us move into more a thoughtful and meaningful practice.
As educators we do have the option of simply adopting the directives generated by the Canadian Pediatric Society, or other international bodies that study the well-being of children around the world. These organizations have developed guidelines about the amount and types of screen time children should or should not consume. But, I wonder, what if our use of media with young children isn’t about consumption? What if it is about discovering the potentialities of how digital tools and media can be used in novel ways – ways that enable children to create, think, design and engage with one another? How would this change our work with young children? How could this guide our decisions about when, what, and how to use digital tools and screens in our programs?
We Think Everywhere is a short inspiring video for educators that captures children’s voices, explorations, and innovations that they created using digital technologies. The video reflects 3 years of international research between early childhood centres / schools in Sweden and the UK.
I invite you to watch this 7.25-minute video below and talk with your teaching colleagues about the ideas that caught your attention or sparked your imagination. How could our thoughtful choices about the use of digital tools and media in our programs impact children’s expressions and learning?
Might the children who directed me to “Put on a show!” find more joy in saying, “Look, at the show we made!”?