I recently came across a schools advertisement for a Sinclair ZX81 computer and it reminded me how much the focus and the purposes of information and communications technology education have changed over the years along with the technology itself. While the aim of ICT education that we took for granted in the 1960s was for children in schools to ultimately learn to write programmes for computers, by the end of the 1980s the focus had changed to teaching children how to operate them.
Today many ICT educators recognise that the technology changes so quickly that even these skills are extremely unlikely to be relevant in an all-too- imminent technological future. It won't be long before even the most modern of today's desktop machines will only be found in museums. Many of us are now much more concerned that children develop the kind of technological literacy that will support them in making informed choices regarding the suitability of different applications in the future.
But while enormous progress has been made in these terms in the past few years throughout education, we still hear a good deal of anxiety expressed about the suitability of computers in early childhood settings. In the past, the same concerns must have been voiced about the use of other tools by children. In fact, as Mitchel Resnick of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab recently argued, it may well be that the practice of using pencils and crayons for drawing was once criticised because it could distract children from appreciating the wonder of an ever-changing world.
Modern applications of information technology provide a means of capturing a good deal of this change and wonder, but it may still be that in focusing too closely on the operation of the tool (the computer), children are sometimes distracted from the purposes of their interaction with it. Even more seriously, inappropriate computer software can be employed that may actually be harmful in terms of the early development of children's values, their perseverance, and their positive dispositions towards learning. But we don't deny children books just because we know that some are unsuitable for them, and we shouldn't deny them computers either.
While the Luddites may have had a case for rejecting the new textile technologies that were denying them their livelihood in the early 19th century, it has to be recognised that the world would be a very different and much poorer place today if it were not for technological advance. Today information and communications technology education is an important aspect of every child's education. From the earliest years, we should be giving children the opportunity to explore, play and learn with these technologies so that they are empowered to apply them effectively and responsibly for the common good in their future lives.
As the Early Learning Goals suggest, young children should be encouraged to begin to develop a knowledge and critical awareness of the common uses of ICT, and there can be few places better to start this process than in early childhood socio-dramatic play. It is just this sort of integrated ICT provision that is promoted by a new initiative supported by the European Union - the Developmentally Appropriate Technology in Early Childhood (DATEC) project. DATEC has involved a sustained two-year collaboration between practitioners and academics in the UK, Sweden and Portugal, and the project will be providing a great deal of early childhood guidance and exemplar material by the end of the year. This information will be freely available from the project website, or any of the addresses provided below.
The DATEC project website is already providing simple, straightforward advice to practitioners on how to better integrate ICT provision, on how to encourage children's collaboration, how to avoid the potential health hazards associated with long-term computer use, and how to identify the most appropriate software.
John Siraj-Blatchford is currently working on Supporting Information and Communication Technology in the Early Years (Oxford University Press), due out in 2002.
We mustn't underestimate young children, at an early stage they should learn that a computer, like any other tool, can be used for good purposes, and can also be used inappropriately.
For further Information about DATEC see www.ioe.ac.uk/cdl/datecor contact John Siraj-Blatchford, University of Cambridge Faculty of Education, Homerton College, Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 2PH (e-mail: js303@cam. ac.uk) or Iram Siraj-Blatchford, University of London Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL (i.siraj-blatchford @ioe.ac.uk) Cambridge CB2 2PH (Tel: 01223 527012 London WC1H 0AL (Tel: 020 7612 6218