Concluding issues

Since children are able to express these aspects of their own learning process, we should be asking them much more often about what they have done before and what kinds of things they would like to learn about. Children need to be tackling very different tasks, if they begin with a more highly developed level of confidence and competence with electronic toys and computers. The ‘teacher’ is only one of the many people who help young children. We need to remind ourselves frequently that children first learn about learning at home, and that we should be asking ourselves how we can know what those early experiences are and how we can help the children to build on them. This is a point made strongly by Wellington (2001).

The children in my sample were learning more about computers from home, their peers and the community, than from school. Outside school is where children are allowed more personal choice too. Could it possibly be that the actions the children take outside school are actions that build on their own tacit knowledge of what they already know? This is what children have done for years in play situations, but the school context has as yet not used much play related to computers in everyday life. Hayes and Johnson (1990) reported a study of a catalogue shop activity in a nursery. The activity used a play area with a computer as central to the context. The context was one that imitated normal life, and the learning that came out of the play activity surprised the teachers. The point is, that children were playing and making choices about the activities that would develop their personal experience and their tacit knowledge. A sensitive teacher will use this tacit knowledge, combine it with children’s questions, and their own knowledge of the learning possibilities with computers and electronic toys. The teacher can use their knowledge to intervene with the child’s permission, and help the child to learn more.

These conversations with children have restated the importance of considering aspects of learning that have long been a central concern for the early years’ teacher. These aspects relate to the ‘whole child’ – linguistic elements, physical skills, social and affective aspects of learning, but this time with electronic toys and computers. New objects of use to learning provide new elements for consideration in the learning process – those of the conceptual structures in the software. The software is a product of the culture, while creating culture, but has a history that is related to the technical development of computers. This is perhaps why access to software can sometimes be inconsistent, eccentric and far from intuitive. If access is not to hinder children who have limited time to explore computers and electronic toys, teachers need to consider the software structure when working with children. Table 1.2 shows the conceptual elements to take into account when considering the use of a particular item of software. There are three groups of considerations:

WHAT DO CHILDREN HAVE TO SAY?

1 Aspects of IT – physical needs, vocabulary terms

2 Human needs – social considerations, emotional responses

3 Conceptual demands – both of the task challenge and of the software structures that relate back to children’s misunderstandings.

Both IT and ICT are necessary for effective learning to take place. The learning needs to consider what the children know; how they feel about that; how they relate to other children; how interested they are in the whole process; how well they feel; and many other things. Once the

Concluding issues