Over the last 20 years, the presence of technology and screen media in the preschool classroom has shifted. It was once present as a large, clunky computer station with basic “educational” gaming programs and word processing, and it was used in a separate room or at designated times each week. Now, it is a tool integrated into the teaching and learning that occur throughout each day.

As technology rapidly advances, families, educators, policymakers, and others have expressed concerns with an increase in technology and media use in the classroom—and with good reason. Overuse of technology, excessive consumption of media, and inappropriate content all have the potential to negatively influence what and how children learn and develop. However, decades of research and professional practice point to the potential of technology and media, especially when the content is of high quality, created for educational purposes with young children, and used intentionally to enhance children’s experiences and expand their potential to create and communicate.

We (the four authors) are teachers at a laboratory preschool on an urban college campus, serving children from diverse social and economic backgrounds in inclusive, mixed-age classrooms. During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, our center closed for several months, launching even the most hesitant teacher into the world of technology. The aftereffects were felt throughout the school year, as we changed many of our teaching and family communication strategies. In retrospect, these adaptations made clear some of the strategies we had begun integrating into our practices—even before COVID-19—that involved intentional use of technology and media for teaching and learning. In this article, we share four impactful, research-supported practices involving technology and media, and we offer a look at each one in action from our classrooms.

Using Technology and Media for Creative Expression

Children demonstrate remarkable adaptability when using new forms of technology for their creative processes. For example, over the years, many children have shown incredible skill in and understanding of photography with digital cameras. Now that smart devices are available, they are branching out to include creating, recording, and editing movies, music, and animation. They seem to instinctively know the basics of how to do this, and when given the opportunity, they use digital expression as readily as other art tools.

We observed this when a child in Jennifer’s (one of the authors) class combined photography with digital drawing to create new art.

Artwork by Clara 

Using Technology and Media to Support Inquiry

Often, in the pursuit of new knowledge and deeper understanding, children ask adults for answers to their questions. Now, they can also ask Google or Siri. Many educators, hoping to empower children to answer their own questions, use methods that focus on the process of discovery rather than just the end result. While looking up answers through a search engine can be appropriate, other options provide a much more robust inquiry experience. Technology-based options include child-friendly microscope attachments for devices, informational videos on a wide variety of topics, virtual tours of hard-to-reach places, and the ability to chat with experts around the world.

Sarah (another author) and her preschool class used the video conferencing skills they had learned throughout the stay-at-home portion of the pandemic to research their interests during a yearlong study of growth across several animal species.

This new way for children to virtually meet with experts in their community has proved to be just as meaningful as a face-to-face meeting—and is now easier and more available to do than ever. Educators like Sarah have found this new skill and comfort with this type of meeting to be a silver lining of the pandemic, adopting it as a tool to support and expand teaching and learning.

Using Technology and Media to Document and Communicate

Many teachers have become comfortable using technology to document and showcase children’s learning and to maintain contact with families. Additionally, the immediate ability to review digitally captured images and recordings encourages children to reflect upon and extend their work, as well as collaborate and share with others across time and space. (To read more about documenting and sharing children’s learning, see Experiences Can’t Go Home in Cubbies: Using Digital Technology and Documentation to Connect with Families by Stephanie Haney.)

A child in Jenn’s class accessed these affordances as he built upon the drawing skills honed by Clara:

Inspired by her work, Marcus asks Clara to teach him about her digital drawing process. Once he masters it, Marcus enjoys making this new creative technique his own. He begins to document the life of the classroom: photographing classmates, occasionally giving directions to stage the shots, and labeling his work using the markup tool. As part of his process, Marcus always asks the children if he can photograph their work. In addition, he wants them to know that they can refer to his work in the event that they need to remember specific details, which echoes a regularly used classroom practice of creating and revisiting documentation in support of deepening children’s work.

The digital nature of the children’s work made it very easy to share with their families. This was especially important to do during the pandemic since families were not allowed to enter our center. Communication apps such as ClassDojo and photo sharing websites like Shutterfly allowed Jenn to send work to families in real time, with input from children to select which pieces to share and dictating any language to accompany the work.

Using Technology and Media to Enhance Curriculum Resources

Teachers can also use technology and media to enhance classroom curriculum materials, increasing accessibility for children and families. A digital library of familiar children’s books, such as Eric Carle’s Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? and The Very Hungry Caterpillar, are readily available through classroom devices and programs and are read aloud in many of the home languages our children speak. They benefit both multilingual and monolingual children in a variety of ways, including fostering language and literacy skills, expanding content knowledge, and building community through shared learning experiences.

In addition, websites designed as “virtual hubs” for classrooms strengthen the connection between home and school contexts. They house high-quality resources, feature classroom events, document projects, and provide consistent communication. The website for Carmen’s (another author) class included many resources that children and families could regularly access, and it was developed and updated based on the needs and feedback of families.

The enthusiastic feedback from families and the interest of the children inspired Carmen to continue this practice into the future. The needs may adjust, but the benefits remain in a post-COVID classroom as one of many opportunities to capitalize on the affordances of technology to build community and enhance shared experiences for children and families.

Conclusion

Through reflection and intentional planning, technology and media can cease to be an additional curricular area to address or something to fear including in the classroom. Incorporating these as tools in the ways we have discussed here empowers children and educators to actively learn and grow with the support of technology and media.

Photographs: courtesy of Jennifer Horwitz and Carmen Rietta.
Copyright © 2022 by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. See permissions and reprints online at NAEYC.org/resources/permissions.