REFLECTION ONE

Reelection One: Digital Technology in Early Childhood Centers

Nowadays, televisions, CD-players and computers are widely used in the early childhood centers in New Zealand.  How the high technology helps with children’s development? How the teachers use the high technologies in teaching? Discovered in the Te Whariki and New Zealand Curriculum, here I made a link to Te Whariki: children use a variety of technologies for different purposes as they explore their world (Ministry of Education, 1996, p.98). “Technology is associated with the transformation of energy, information, and materials” (Ministry of Education, 2007, p.32).

In my center, children have a variety of technology materials to explore. Teachers just put the computer keyboard, displayed-camera, and cell-phone models on the floor that children can easily reach. It’s common to see the teacher using CD-players or DVD-player in the center. I noticed that a lot of children know how to use the digital tools. They know the button in the middle top can make the CD-player work and they can enjoy the songs. Nobody told children how to use it, how did they learn that? In fact, children recorded the action in their mind when teachers were using the CD-player -- push the button in the middle. Technology is everywhere in our life. Teachers and adults are bringing technology into children’s world. We provide more and more opportunities for them to learn about the high technology. Dockett and Fleer (1999) indicate that modelling can provide important cues to children seeking to enter play, but unsure how to do this (Arthur, L., Beecher, B., Dockett, S., Farmer, S., & Death, E, 2008, p.328).

Each room has an inner-line, when the phone is ringing children would be exciting. Some of the children will remind and ask me to answer the phone. Once a child said, “The phone, the phone is ringing, that could be my mummy”. Because the child’s mummy was in traffic jam that day, he thought his mummy would give the teachers a call to explain why she was late. That’s very interesting. I was supervised that, the child noticed how does the phone working in our life. Obviously, he knows cell-phone/phone is a very convenient communication tool we used to chat with the person far away from us. It is true that, technology is a part of our life now. And technology is changing our life in this age. I believed that children have the ability to represent their discoveries, using creative and expressive media and the technology associated with them (Smori, S., 1999, p.4).

I still remember when I first met Child D and his mother in the center. D cried a lot, because he just came from America and that was his first in the center. It was very hard for both of D and his mother. After D’s sleep, I told D I would play game with him; I wanted to choose him as my model, because I need some lovely photos and video to share at the mat time. D agreed to do that. I used the camera to record D’s happy first day in our big room and shared with the children.D assistant me at the mat time, he clicked mouse to turn the pictures on the computer for me. D also helped to laminate his own photo. When his mother arrived in the afternoon, I shared the photos that D was climbing on the monkey and riding a motorbike, and a video that D joined our game with the other children. D’s mother was very happy to see the video. I think in this case, the digital technology helps teacher to record children’s special and important moments in the centers; and build up a good and trusted relationship between the new comers’ families. Children will get more confident in the center for the transition from home to center, which will help children’s development. Through this experience D learnt to use technology in the center, and experienced how technology works for his development. Children learn to critique the impact of technology on societies and the environment (Ministry of Education, 2007, p.34).

In conclusion, children get more benefits from the technology today. They can watch interesting videos on TV; they can listen and dance with their favorite music  by a CD-player; they can use computer and cell-phones to contact with the person who is far away from them. Technology is changing our life, and children will also be influenced. Use the technology with teachers' help in the center, which assists children's development. 

Reference:

Ministry of Education. (1996). Te Whāriki: He whāriki mātauranga mo nga mokopuna o Aotearoa: Early childhood curriculum. Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media.

Ministry of Education. (2007). The New Zealand Curriculum. New Zealand: Learning    Media

Arthur, L., Beecher, B., Dockett, S., Farmer, S., & Death, E. (2008). Programming and planning in early childhood settings (4th ed.). South Melbourne, Victoria, Australia: Cengage Learning.

Smori, S. (1999) Technology in Early Childhood. Early Education.   


Tsantis, L., Bewick, C., & Thornton, S. (2003). Examining some common myths about computers in the early years. Young Children on the Web, November 2003, 1-9.