Children's Responses to Working and Non-Working Technologies

This chapter will explore children's engagement with digital technologies in early childhood educational settings. The traditional practices in early childhood education are often seen at odds with digital technologies and therefore digital technologies are restricted and sometimes removed altogether (Lindahl and Folkesson, 2012). Children's experiences with digital technologies have been supported by parents and policy makers who view technological competencies as an essential skill for future success. This has resulted in digital technologies being viewed as 'an integral part of educational provision for young children in affluent nations' (Stephen and Plowman, 2014: 330). This chapter aims to affirm children's technological play as 'real play' with the potential to extend children's learning. Based on research conducted in two early childhood settings, the findings illustrate how children engaged with the provided digital technologies in settings that valued play as the way children learn (Wood, 2013). Changing the way children's engagement with digital technologies is viewed can help to develop new practices, which focus on the possibilities for learning 'with digital technologies and their potential for teaching children.