NAEYC Position Statement: Technology and Young Children, Ages 3 - 8

Technology and Young Children--Ages 3 through 8
A position statement by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, Adopted 1996

NAEYC's research indicates that technology does not replace important interaction in early childhood education, but it is a huge par of life in America therefore important to address and include even to young children.  Appropriate usage of technology in education supports and enhances activities like art, dramatic play, building, writing, reading, etc.  These are all important to the development of children and cannot be replicated with technology, but computer programs can offer new and unique teaching strategies to assist by giving individual students the ability to use technology as well as help the teacher involve ad address the class as a whole.  Part of the teacher's responsibility is judging what technology is appropriate for their class specifically, because no class is the same.  The students' age and culture factor into the process, therefore ensuring that there is no violence or stereotyping is essential.

Many of the readings so far have focused on technology as a tool to be combined with other important teaching strategies to best support the children's education.  This reading addressed that as well but expanded on details that other readings have not.  NAEYC emphasized the importance of teachers choosing appropriate material, not only relevant and useful material but technology that all students have equal access to, that all can use, includes content that is age-appropriate, is equally accessible to any students with handicaps, etc.  These were several details that I had not considered.  It is easy to state that I will need to "carefully consider" what material is appropriate without even knowing how to walk that out.  This article gives examples of several important factors and ideas regarding how to address those in the classroom; I had not considered how to make technology accessible to all races and socioeconomic groups, equally interesting and relevant to both genders, free of stereotyping and exposure to violence, etc.  I now realize how important it is to weigh the cost of the programs I wish to use in the classroom.  With this information I could make a check list for programs I am considering using and ensuring that it is best for the entire class in all of the areas listed above.