Children, play, and computers in pre-school education

The paper reports a study designed to inform the development of an information and communication technology strategy for the pre-school years of education. The main methods of collecting evidence were observations at seven pre-school settings and interviews with at least two practitioners and a number of children at each site. Practitioners generally referred to children “playing with the computer”. We describe some of the problems to be found in the emphasis on free play in nurseries and play groups when this means children are using computers as complete novices. There were few examples of peer support; adults rarely intervened or offered guidance and the most common form of intervention was reactive supervision. Interaction with a computer was therefore a limited experience for most children, but we provide examples of guided interaction that suggest a way forward for professional development. Introduction Pre-school education is a particularly interesting area for investigating the use of computers. Pre-school environments offer opportunities to observe the relationship between formal and informal learning, the balance between learner-centred and adultdirected activities, and the use of computers by children who are unable to follow textbased instructions. The study described here took place in Scotland, where almost all 4-year-olds (99%) and 83% of 3-year-olds are in part-time pre-school education, funded by the government and provided by the public, private, or voluntary sectors (Scottish Executive, 2003). Children start formal school education at the age of five in Scotland so “pre-school education” is defined as provision across these three sectors for children aged between 3 and 5 in the two years before they begin school. The interest in information and communication technology (ICT) in pre-school settings comes at a time when there is widespread (although not unequivocal) support for the value of computers in educational settings and a political commitment to their intro146 British Journal of Educational Technology Vol 36 No 2 2005 © British Educational Communications and Technology Agency, 2005. duction. The starting age for schooling across European countries ranges from four to seven (Sharp, 2002) and there appears to be a desire to prepare children of all ages for what is seen as an increasingly complex and technological world. In the UK, computers are seen by the government and others as having the potential to improve the quality and standards of pupils’ education in addition to supporting teachers in their everyday classroom roles. Governments across Europe are introducing computers at progressively earlier stages of education but policies that have been developed for schools are not necessarily transferable to pre-school settings. This is because, in the UK, there are cultural differences between learning in the pre-school sector and learning in schools to be taken into account, including: • the curriculum and assessment are less prescriptive for pre-school settings and the role of computers in driving up standards is not yet explicitly stated in pre-school policy documents; • pre-school practitioners have a diverse range of qualifications and experience and settings sometimes have very few staff; • pre-school settings do not generally have a high level of ICT resources and few practitioners have been involved in ICT training available to school teachers; and • there are different norms of professional practice with reference to formal, adultdirected teaching and an emphasis on learning through play. The Scottish Executive (the devolved government for Scotland) initiated a review of ICT in pre-school settings to encompass (1) a framework showing how ICT can enhance and support young children’s development and learning and (2) a strategy to inform the planning and delivery of initial training for practitioners and their further professional development. Learning and Teaching Scotland, a government-funded agency that develops the curriculum and the role of ICT in promoting learning, was tasked with meeting these objectives and commissioned us to review the literature on ICT in preschool settings. This review (Plowman & Stephen, 2003; Stephen & Plowman, 2003a) revealed that there was insufficient practice-based evidence on which to build decision making so we were subsequently commissioned to undertake the research described here. The aim of this research was to use a case study approach to describe the use of ICT in seven pre-school settings in terms of what was available and how it was used by adults and children. At the time of this study, government-funded education in Scotland was delivered in accordance with the Curriculum Framework for Children 3 to 5 (SCCC, 1999). This document does not make a detailed reference to ICT, although within the curriculum area “Knowledge and understanding of the world” it states: The children’s environment is one in which technology is important in their everyday lives. As children use blocks, put on a warm jumper, look through a magnifying glass, clamber on to a climbing frame, use a computer or travel by train, they become aware of the everyday uses of technology in the home, in transport, in communication and in leisure. (p. 23) Children and computers in pre-school 147 © British Educational Communications and Technology Agency, 2005. Play is the dominant medium for learning in Scottish pre-school education and there is a consensus that pedagogy and practice should be child-centred, an approach manifested by children choosing what to do during extended periods of free play. Although this approach is supplemented by planned, adult-led small group activities in most areas of the pre-school curriculum, this was not the case for learning with technologies. This paper examines computer use as a play activity and what this means for children’s interactions with each other, with the computer, and with adults.