Research Points

What Research Says about Technology and Child Development

Children from birth to age eight are learning at a rapid pace. During this time children learn and play across five developmental dimension:

Social and Emotional Development

Language Development

Physical Well-Being and Motor Development

Cognition and General Knowledge

Approaches Toward Learning 

• Large amounts of research focuses on the use of computers to " enhance social, language, and cognitive skills" ( NREL). 
• Social Development:Computers and software can serve as a vehicle for interaction related to the child's work. 
• Proper placement of the computer in the classroom can strike conversations between peers as they work together on activities on the computer as well as talk about new things they have learned. It can also be a motivation for children's cognitive and social dev., enhance improve their attitude about learning, increase spoken communication and cooperation skills, and initiate interactions with peers more frequently. 
• Language Development: Encourages longer, more complex speech and the development of fluency
• Children speak out loud and narrate as they read on the computer of draw pictures.
• Children learn to cooperate with peers as they share, take turns, and talk about what they are doing.
• Physical Well-Being and Motor Development: Computers allow them to write freely without having to had completely developed good handwriting skills. They should not sit in front of the computer too long. Limit time to 1 hour a day, balancing it with physical activity.
• Cognition and General Knowledge: They are able to manipulate things that they could not have outside the physical world. Use open ended software, do not drill and test them. 
• Approaches Toward Learning: They are a good way to learn and reveal hidden strengths as well as a good way to assess. 

What Research Says about Technology in Child Development:

Using technology in the classroom can range from short and simple lessons to being an integral part of long-term projects.  Technology should be used in addition to hands-on learning, and should not take the place of important tasks children need to accomplish during their early years.

Technology can help children improve their social development, their language development, their cognition and general knowledge.

Technology can support educational goals and support content standards when used in a planned, guided manner.  It can help with students' language development and emergent literacy and mathematics.  Adult participation and guidance are important.

When selecting software for young children, it is critical to choose software that is DAP.  It should:

Encourage exploration, imagination, and problem solving

Reflect and build on what children already know

Involve many senses and include sound, music, and voice

Be open-ended, with the child in control of the pace and the path

Hardware that can be used in the classroom:

Tape recorders

Video cameras

TV/VCRs

Fax machines

Portable keyboards

Digital microscopes

Computers

For choosing technology to be used with younger children, the best choice for a particular situation may be no new technology, or just simple tape recorders and cameras.

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5 Effective ways for Children to use technology:

1. Make and display a graph: physical graph with  actual objects that are meaningful( collect info, fav. colors, how they traveled to school) 

2. Explore with digital tools: explore things with a new perspective ( ex: use magnifying glasses, pictures off line etc. save so children can refer back to them)

3. Tell a story to create pictures and words: make one on the computer

4. Write, record, and revisit: take pictures that you have taken along the way and turning them into a book; power point, online, have them write captions, drawings etc. 

5. Share and document Learning: Make sure they you send different pictures in the books home with the kids so they can talk with parents about it, enhancing communication.