How to connect Digital play to Learning and Development goals with ease?

The following is an excerpt from my play-based learning online course that addresses how ICT supports children’s learning. You can find it in the member’s area of my ICT in Education Teacher Academy today.

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As early childhood teachers move forward like the rest of the world into a digitally-dominated society, the shift in focus from integrating ICT in early childhood education to integrating digital technology in early childhood education in the form of digital play has broadened the use of resources to apply to the early childhood learning environment.?

Nevertheless, it is possible to use the exact same teaching strategies in early childhood education as ICT is a type of digital technology.?

Your planning, therefore, should be the same with the purpose of ensuring that digital technology in early childhood education is viewed as a tool to support and enhance teaching and learning. It should never be seen as an add-on to the curriculum.?

Planning should be seen as flexible with any part of the plan being able to be used independently, stretched over a longer period, or condensed to meet the needs of any group. This is important to ensure that every child is provided with a varied and enjoyable curriculum that meets their individual developing needs.?

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Using the Early Learning Goals

When digital technology is used in an imaginative way to deliver the curriculum and is threaded through all Early Learning Goals, steppingstones, topics and digital play experiences, then the quality of what is taught and learned is further developed and the effectiveness of the learning process is enhanced.?

The first step is choosing your topic and making your medium-term plans. This article addresses the next step which is in this case, both the EYLF and EYFS to highlight the key learning opportunities your activities will address.

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Play based learning in early childhood education

Learning through play is an essential element of Early Years education as it helps to develop the children’s awareness of themselves socially, emotionally and physically. So, integrating many forms of digital technology into imaginative play situations encourages personal, social and emotional development.?

Play is also linked physical, literacy and language, cognitive, and creative development.

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Linking the EYLF

Within the EYLF, there are connections to physical, cognitive, literacy and numeracy as well as social and emotional development for young children as follows:?

• EYLF learning outcome 3.2 – Children take responsibility for their own health and wellbeing (2-3 years)
• EYLF learning outcome 4.4 – Children resource their own learning through connecting with people, place, technologies and natural and processed materials (3-5 years).
• EYLF learning outcome 5.2 – Children engage with a range of texts and gain meaning from these texts.?

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What follows are not my ideas but are starting points that almost any setting can try to support children’s progress.??Use these as your early childhood educator goals today.?

The following in learning and development will be addressed:

• Personal, social and emotional development.
• Creative development.
• Understanding the world
• Literacy development
• Numeracy development
• Physical development

Personal, Social and Emotional development

Throughout both the Early Year curriculums, social and emotional development is achieved through collaboration, and digital technology such as ICT encourages children to cooperate with each other, learn together, be patient, persevere and concentrate.?

You need to plan carefully for social and collaborative development to ensure that a good learning outcome for all is achieved.?

Here are a few ideas to get you started.?

• Talk about ICT or digital technology. Explain what ICT stands for and ask the children to talk about things in their own homes that are ICT or digital technology. Do parents have a mobile phone? Do children use computers at home?
• Talk about how to look after and take care of CDs an DVDs. Explain how to hold CDs and DVDs and why they should be replaced in their cases after they are used.
• In small groups explain how Google can be used to search for information. Then use Google to find answers to questions given by the children.
• Use ‘talking books’ and talk about the characters and how they behave and what they feel.
• You can read a fairytale one day and then the following day watch the story on a DVD or listen to it on a CD. Follow this up by talking about the way the characters sounded/looked. Were they like the book pictures? Were they what the children imagined would be like?
• Another idea would be to make posters on a computer of daily routines and when they are complete you can discuss how the routines help people.
• Programmable robots such as Bee Bots can be used to encourage children to share and to take turns when pressing the control buttons. Mapping is encouraged using programmable toys.
• You can examine a variety of early years ICT-based games and play some of the games. Along the way ensure that children learn to respect the opinions of their peers.

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Creative Development

The use of digital technology in early childhood education can foster creative development. As an example, the digital microscope is an excellent resource for looking closely and examining texture.

Here are some other ideas.

• The children can enjoy making and using model laptop computers in a role play office or on a role play train.
• Show the children pictures of laptop computers with colourful covers and provide them with a computer-sized?piece of paper so that they can decorate as covers for laptop computers.
• Cut the letters ICT out of a large sheet of cardboard and then invite the children to cover the letters with pictures from catalogues showing ICT. When it is finished, you can varnish the letters with watered-down PVA glue and use them for a display.
• Use a digital microscope to examine sugar crystals. Invite the children to record the patterns with paint, glue and glitter.
• Use the Internet to find words for favourite nursery rhymes. You can either show the words on the IWB or display them on a board with illustrations provided by the children.
• Use paint and draw computer graphics programs to create colour patterns.
• What about using keyboards to make tunes.
• Make remote control patterns.
• Show the children how to word process the letter that starts their name and alter the size and font. Print out each letter and provide crayons and pens for the children to enjoy turning their letter into a picture.
• Make models of robots and remote control cars.
• Leave a selection of story CDs for children to play with independently. Provide dressing up clothes and resources for the children to enjoy role playing the characters within the stories.
• Paint pictures of houses for a Google Maps display.
• Set out in the role play area as a car with satellite navigation. Invite pairs of children to enjoy going for drives.

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