2 Fun Digital Literacy Activities for Preschoolers to Try

Digital literacy is about acquiring specific skills to find, use and evaluate information. It is also about being to collaborate and participate in online environments while managing your online identity and security. Finally, it is to do with creating digital content and being more than just a consumer.

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When teaching digital literacy in early childhood education you then consider the use of digital technology for the early acquisition of digital skills to be part of young children’s communication development.

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While some digital play and exposure may develop skills it is often limited so each activity that you design and plan for must be used in a meaningful and purposeful context. Purposeful activities is concerned, therefore, with the hard learning associated with the curriculum and specific content knowledge.

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For any digital literacy activity, therefore, it is important that if you want the digital technology to be incorporated in a meaningful way then it needs to become transparent in its use. Young children need to become focused on using digital technology as a tool to achieve early learning outcomes that they hardly notice that they are using it at all.

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Therefore, you need to decide:

• Which types of technology could be used to achieve these learning outcomes?
• Which technologies would support the learning of the children?
• Which technologies could be used to meet the needs of a variety of learning styles?
• How could technology be used to introduce, engage and motivate the class to the new topic?
• If technology is being used, what learning outcomes particularly associated with that technology can be listed?
• How could technology be incorporated meaningfully?

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Examples of digital literacy activities

?Purposeful digital literacy activities would include that literacy, language and communication development, numeracy development, activities that promote social skills and also that would just teach about the use of digital technology.

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Let us examine some ideas for digital literacy activities for preschoolers now.

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Using ICT to Support Literacy and Language Development

The benefits of using ICT can be realised within the literacy curriculum and in most of children learning activities. For example, ICT can help children observe, fix, memorise, describe and share their impressions with other people, and to find answers to their questions.

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Activity: Visit a working farm

This idea is taken from a particular case study (Rudd & Tyldesley, 2006) where a group of children were taken to a working farm and were allowed to use a digital camera. Each of the children knew how to use the digital camera sufficiently knowing how to turn it on and off, use the viewfinder and press the button to take a picture.

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For this activity, a child was given the responsibility of carrying the digital camera and ensuring that the loop of the handle stayed round her wrist. The children negotiated who would have the first ‘go’ and were able to take turns without much conflict.

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You can ask the children to take photos of all the different kinds of animals that they would see during their visit.

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When the children get back all the photos can be moved onto the computer screen to show everybody else using a slideshow to show photos of entire visit. This will give rise to further and richer talk, and deepen their experience by creating a fuller narrative together with:

• Significant moments from the visit captured by using ICT all of which could be discussed and named.
• Children will learn operational skills and technical language (button, switch, viewfinder, click, and so on).
• The camera will give rise to negotiating and turn-taking conversations.
• The sequence of pictures – in taking and viewing – will strengthen the children’s sense of time and order of events.
• Children will learn – at a simple level – about data transfer between ICT devices.

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Language development was also promoted through the use of the digital camera and the conversations it stimulated about the animals.

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Extension ideas:

Either you as the teacher or an older child could insert the photos into a word processor or DTP program to make posters to display.

Or if you want the children to do further work with you they could use Photo Story to make a presentation, and record a commentary together.

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Using ICT to support mathematical thinking and problem-solving skills

When using ICT in purposeful numeracy activities it can provide a much richer context for children’s problem-solving, open-ended mathematical problems, projects integrating maths skills, and mathematical experiments. ICT enormously extends an opportunity for preschool children to learn contemporary mathematics by giving them a chance to act in visualised mathematical microworlds.

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Activity: Counting to 10

Children can duplicate animal pictures and place them on the spreadsheet grid in the appropriate cell as they count from 1 to 10. They can practice reading the numbers and may read aloud as a class.

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Instructions:

You will need to set up a template to use so that the children need only to learn how to duplicate and move graphics to complete the assignment.

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Additionally, you will need to demonstrate as the teacher how to select a picture by clicking on it so that the handlebars show, and how to duplicate the selected picture by holding down the Control key and pressing D. By doing this, the duplicate picture should appear on the screen.

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Children need to select the duplicate picture by clicking on it and move it by holding the mouse down on the picture, dragging it, and letting go at the appropriate position.

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When completed, the children can enter their name and print the document by clicking on the File menu and print.

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They then look at the hard copy and answer the following questions:

• Are there more dogs or horses?
• How do you know that?
• What number is the largest?
• What number is the smallest?

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With these digital literacy activities for preschoolers, you can create purposeful and meaningful learning for young children in both literacy and numeracy development. Adapt them to suit your needs and to make an impact on learning while equipping children with the skills that they need to become creators of digital content today.