IT revolution hits WA kindergartens

COMPUTING is quickly becoming as essential as finger painting and story time to kindergartens in Australia, and a new project at Murdoch University will ensure that teachers have the right skills to deal with this new information revolution in the early childhood years.

Working with researchers in New South Wales and Victoria, Dr Libby Lee from the School of Education at Murdoch will spend the next three years working with teachers to help them to assist young children to use computers as this will be essential for their later learning

“IBM has donated 36 ‘Young Explorer’ computers to schools around WA to give children in disadvantaged areas exposure to computers they may not otherwise have,” Dr Lee said.

“Until recently computers have played a very peripheral role in early childhood education and many teachers lack confidence and knowledge about how to best use technologies in their learning and teaching program.

“We want to develop best-practice teaching methods, so that teachers and children are equipped to use independent, critical thinking about what is the most effective use of technologies in their classrooms.”

Dr Lee has some experience in this field already, having worked with 12 teachers who were donated computers by IBM in 2001.

“We are hoping that these teachers who have already had experience with computers in the early childhood classroom can act as mentors for this new group,” she said.

“The work we will do with teachers of 3-5 year olds in this latest project will form case studies to develop better practices, and we also hope to follow up on those children involved in the original pilot project to see whether this early start in IT has had a long-term effect,” she said.

Dr Lee said much of the concerns about computers in early years of schooling were grounded in technology being used inappropriately and because there is a lack of adequate research in the early years.

“Many of the computer programs available to small children contain isolated ‘drill and practice’ activities where children are either right or wrong in the way they approached the tasks. More open ended software is a far better tool,” she said.

“Computer use for small children needs to involve open-ended tasks, more about the process than the result. Also one of the great features of these ‘Young Explorer’ machines is that they are designed for two children to use them at the same time, making computer use less of an isolating activity.

“During the pilot program, teachers did some fantastic things, such as encourage children to create a bug on the computer and then make a 3-D version of their bugs with craft materials. I am looking forward to seeing the creative ways that this new group of teachers find to use computers in the classroom.”

This three-year project was funded by the Australian Research Council.