Education Technology

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John Siraj-Blatchford University of
Cambridge Iram Siraj-Blatchford University of
London
What is ICT Education In the Early Years?
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IBM KidSmart Evaluations (2000/04)
ICT Research since 1999
Researching Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years
Developmentally Appropriate Technology in Early
Childhood
http//www.327Matters.org
Educative technology in Early Childhood Context
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• Guidance for Appropriate Technology
• Education in Early Childhood
• Identifying good ICT practice
• Applications should be educational
• Encouraging collaboration
• Integration and play through ICT
• The child should be in control
• Applications should be transparent and intuitive
• Applications should not contain violence or
  stereotyping
• Awareness of health and safety issues
• Educational involvement of parents

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• Selected findings from the IBM European
  Evaluation of KidSmart
• The percentage of time where adults are working
  directly with children at the computer was
  reported to be lower overall than before the
  intervention. Few intensive interaction
  situations were observed..
• Current evidence points towards a positive effect
  on collaboration by children and the
  encouragement of peer support.

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• Suggested recommendations for national policy
  makers
• The KidSmart Early Learning programme has
  highlighted the need and demand for professional
  training.
• There is still a long way to go in integrating
  ICT fully into the curriculum.
• There is also a long way to go in developing
  parental partnerships but the potential of ICT in
  supporting the educational involvement of parents
  is beginning to be recognised.
• There is a need to support knowledge building and
  co-operation at all levels.

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Curriculum Priorities for Technology Education

• The development of
• Educational Technology
• or
• Technology Education

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Technology Education or Education Technology?

• When we focus research too closely on
  measuring traditional learning outcomes in ICT
  there is a significant risk of failing to
  recognise that technology provides a means of
  achieving new learning outcomes.

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Education Technology to support Basic Skills

• IMPACT-2 failed to provide any uniform evidence
  of links between school ICT and learner
  achievement
• (David Wood, 2003 p9)
• Meta-analysis of 75 experimental comparisons
  involving early readers overall effect size 0.2
  (Blok et. al. 2002)
• Too formal approach can be counter productive
  (Schweinhart and Weikart, 1997)

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Technology Education for the Knowledge Society

• Seeing knowledge as a resource rather than an
  educational objective
• creating, and 'adding value', to knowledge
  products such as scientific and technological
  discoveries, texts and media.

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Curriculum objectives for a Knowledge Society?

• Communication
• Collaboration
• Creativity
• Problem solving and learning to
  learn

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Communication and Collaboration for the Knowledge
Society
Sustained shared thinking An episode in which
two or more individuals work together in an
intellectual way to solve a problem, clarify a
concept, evaluate activities, extend a narrative
etc. Both parties must contribute to the
thinking and it must develop and extend.
Siraj-Blatchford et al (2002) Researching
Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years (REPEY),
DfES
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Creativity Education for the Knowledge Society

• Vygotsky (2004) distinguished between two types
  of cognitive activity, those reproductive, and
  those involving creativity Creative activity,
  based on the ability of our brain to combine
  elements, is called imagination or fantasy in
  psychology (p4). In their fantasy play, young
  children separate objects and actions from their
  meaning in the real world and give them new
  meanings. This provides a basis for early
  representational thinking.

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Early forms of symbolic play provide important
precursors for the development of more
sophisticated kinds of representational thought
later. Play provides the opportunity for
children to consider objects abstractly.
Children use a variety of props to represent
other objects. The focus of the childs attention
becomes what is it that the object signifies,
what can it do, what are its properties and
functions - rather than its operation or
representation in the real world. The child is
therefore able to explore the object in a more
abstract and intellectual way.
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In more advanced forms of representational
thinking props are no longer required, problems
may be solved entirely in ones head. The
development of such sophisticated levels of
abstraction are also related to the development
of Metacognition - the knowledge and awareness
children come to develop of their own cognitive
processes. Metacognition develops as the child
finds it necessary to describe, explain and
justify their thinking about different aspects of
the world to others. For most children such a
theory of mind develops at about 4½ years.
Research shows that childrens pretend play
becomes reciprocal and complementary at about the
same time.
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When children are in control of their learning we
provide an opportunity for them to be creative

• To be creative we need two things
• Knowledge of a broad range of alternative things
  that can be done (or thought).
• The playful disposition to try out these
  alternatives in new contexts, whether this be in
  the minds eye or in the material world.

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Encourage children

• to playfully look for alternative ways of doing
  things
• to see that there is always a choice
• to make connections between things
• to make unusual comparisons
• to see things from others points of view

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Learning to Learn for the Knowledge Society

• Much of what teachers do in helping students to
  learn how to learn consists of strengthening
  their meta-cognitive capacity, namely the
  capacity to monitor, evaluate, control and change
  how they think and learn. This is a critical
  feature of personalised learning.
  (Hargreaves et al, 2005, p 18)

In the early years this is achieved in
Play
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Programmable Toys and Play

• Computers help even young children think about
  thinking, as early proponents suggested (Papert,
  1980). In one study, preschoolers who used
  computers scored higher on measures of
  metacognition (Fletcher-Flinn and Suddendorf,
  1996). They were more able to keep in mind a
  number of different mental states simultaneously
  and had more sophisticated theories of mind than
  those who did not use computers
• (Bowman, et al 2001, p229)

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Pedagogic Integration an application of 2Simple
We decided that we would combine a simple logo
programme with a remote control car
Nursery Cambridge
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Programmable Toys and Play
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Delivering Letters with Pixie
Once it had been ascertained that it was a map
of the village the children then started to
recall the main features of the village and place
the photographs in the correct spaces. Clare
Hateley, Earls Barton
.. The teacher explained to the children that
Pixie was going to travel round the village
delivering letters to the various amenities
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It is interesting to observe the children when
they are using Pixie, as some children can
visualise where Pixie needs to go and will just
enter the directions, while other children will
have to walk the route Pixie will take before
entering the instructions.
Children identify with the Turtle and are thus
able to bring their knowledge about their bodies
and how they move into the work of learning
formal geometry. (Papert
- Mindstorms p.58)
..In conclusion to this activity I feel that it
provided the children with an opportunity to
develop their problem solving skills in an
enjoyable and meaningful context.
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The project began when I introduced Roamer as a
toy that liked to dance. I showed the children
that, by pressing the green Go key, Roamer
would perform a demonstration dance for them.
Using Roamer for Purposeful Recording Chrissie
Dale, Kings Sutton
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Emergent Literacy
Roamer provided the children with an object to
think with thus enabling them to see their
thinking and follow it through, changing and
adapting their ideas to correct mistakes or
extend ideas.
Emergent Numeracy
I asked the children to write their own dance
routines down for Roamer and programme them in.
They wrote on whiteboards to allow rubbing out
and editing and found Roamer easy enough to
operate to be able to programme in their ideas
independently. The children used a variety of
forms of mark making to record their
instructions. Some attempted to write whole
words and numbers whilst others used the movement
symbols from the keypad to record their ideas.
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The project began when I introduced Roamer as a
toy that liked to dance. I showed the children
that, by pressing the green Go key, Roamer
would perform a demonstration dance for them.
Using Roamer for Purposeful Recording Chrissie
Dale, Kings Sutton
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Emergent Literacy
Roamer provided the children with an object to
think with thus enabling them to see their
thinking and follow it through, changing and
adapting their ideas to correct mistakes or
extend ideas.
Emergent Numeracy
I asked the children to write their own dance
routines down for Roamer and programme them in.
They wrote on whiteboards to allow rubbing out
and editing and found Roamer easy enough to
operate to be able to programme in their ideas
independently. The children used a variety of
forms of mark making to record their
instructions. Some attempted to write whole
words and numbers whilst others used the movement
symbols from the keypad to record their ideas.
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ICT and Socio-dramatic Play

• the quality of play of the experiences in
  reception classes generally, not just those with
  a central focus on ICT, have been improved by the
  initiative.
• Teachers have been re-energised by the
  project's focus on play and in a number of cases
  they have radically re-assessed the learning
  environment that they provide.

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At The Vets Kings Sutton Primary School
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At the vets program encouraged emergent writing.
It gave children a reason to write
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Role-play area was set up as a Post Office
Syresham St. James Primary School
A burglary took place in the Post Office, with
the robbery captured on the childrens security
camera
A collective and collaborative problem solving
exercise ...with high levels of
communication/sustained shared thinking
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The children were gathered onto the carpet
where I took the register in role, dressed as a
Police Officer and greeting the children as if
they too were Police Officers, i.e. Good morning
P.C. Smith, good morning P.C. Byrd. This helped
the children to get into character and prepare
them for the weeks learning. A witness statement
was then read to the children describing to them
the burglary that had taken place and asked in
their help to solve the crime. The children
had many ideas part of the conversation is
recorded below We could search the
school Yes, we could split up to make it
easier We should ask Mr. Moreby if he saw
anything Where is the video? I think we need
a Police Station
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What are the qualities of this sort of play?
.the curriculum objectives for a Knowledge
Society

• Communication
• Collaboration
• Creativity
• Problem solving and learning to
  learn

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What do we want Technology Education or
Educational Technology?
Conclusion - we do want both but perhaps not
quite as much educational technology as
technology education in the early
years!
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Emergent ICTEducation...just as advocates of
emergent literacy have encouraged mark making
as a natural prelude to writing, so we encourage
children to apply ICT tools for their own
purposes in their play as a natural prelude to
formal Information and communications technology
education in the school.