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When beginning this unit, I was interested to see what knowledge I would find out about technology as in the early childhood industry, the learning focus has been more on tangible, open ended objects for children to engage in rather than technology. For my own personal use of technology, I engage with it a lot either using the internet to find new recipes to cook, researching new ideas, playing apps on my iPhone or iPad or catching up with social media. I think though growing up with the technology, I have adapted to it quicker as we got taught how to use it, rather than learning at an older age where it's all quite new, as I have experienced with my grandparents and teaching them how to use their iPhone or iPads. As the technology is developing rapidly, children are capable and have this natural understanding of how technology works at such a young age that I do think we still need to my mindful of how much they are engaging with it and how they are engaging with it. I do feel that childhood is losing a bit of the natural/free play environment where children explore just with nature and nothing else. Growing up I lived on 16 acres and I use to just go into the paddocks I didn't take anything, and I just explored, created games, found all sorts of creatures and made cubby houses and it was the best! Now it's all about keeping children busy and entertained and making sure there's enough activities out but really I feel strongly that we are just over stimulating children and when their isn't anything for children to do they are 'bored' and struggle to create or use their imaginary skills to fill in the time with what's around them.

In thinking about the childhood industry and technology, there is still a divide in whether or not technology should be used with children and a lot of it is dictated by parents and management biases. Some of it comes from the teachers in whether they are confident in using it and for what purpose. In my personal experience, technology hasn't been encouraged, mainly by parents as they can often say, 'I'm not paying for my children to use iPads and watch videos, they do that at home' and by management as they can't afford the technology or it's limited. I have always been interested in involving technology more within childhood, but I guess I have always been worried about parent expectations and my own confidence in what deems to be appropriate and what isn't. Reading this article really make sense to me as I do believe that there is a confident and support factor that needs to be addressed within early childhood, so that the teacher knows how to effectively intergrade it into their classrooms and know how to educate the parents in the benefits of technology in children's learning. This sentence in the article, "Others note that teachers primarily use technology for communicating with parents or preparing class materials instead of using it for student learning" (p. 83) I totally agree with that as I do think that educators are afraid of using technology with children because we haven't been educated in how to use it purposefully and effectively.

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Factors influencing digital technology use in early childhood education

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In following on from my first post I have been thinking about how to integrate technology into my own service but undecided whether to start with the children or start with the families. In reading some of the set readings for this unit, one that had caught my attention was 'Universal Design for learning and Technology in the Early Childhood Classroom' as it talks about how really, we as teachers should be embracing children to develop their learning and knowledge with the use of technology. Now that this "readily-available technology" has been integrated into the daily activities of children and has been considered an developmentally appropriate practice this now "presents challenges to education professionals who must (a) make decisions about how technology is used in a developmentally-appropriate manner and (b) attend to how it may be effectively and efficiently connected to the curriculum using planned early childhood classroom activities that link learning standards and instructional objectives, instructional strategies, and assessment approaches." (p. 167) I think for educators and myself, looking into our curriculums and knowledge that we do have about positive technology, we need to start making this our focus for the implementation of more technology within early childhood. From personal experience, letting the bias and opinions of parents overrule what we are educating our children needs to have a limit at times. We are professional educators in what we are teaching children and need to be respected for that within our practices. In saying that we are professionals, I think we need to become stronger and believe in ourselves that we are doing the right things and sometimes we need to educator or inform the parents on why we do certain things and the benefits that the children will be involved in.

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Universal Design for Learning and Technology in the Early Childhood Classroom

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As I have been thinking about ways to encourage myself to think more positively about using technology with children, I thought I would have a look on the internet and search for a ted talk and I had come across with talk by Sara DeWitt which was perfect!
After watching this, I took away lots of good ideas to look at more of the positive things that technology can offer to children instead of the negative. As a society, I do believe that we are quite negative and critical in our thinking about how parents decide what is okay and what is not okay. Sara really points out how we straight away think negative and the harmful things with technology instead of all the positive ways that we could be engaging and teaching children the appropriate use of technology.

Listening to this talk has made me feel more excited to try and use technology more with children not for children. A way that educator's mainly use technology is for children, which I mainly do but we never really use the technology with children or engage children in what we are doing with the technology. For example, in my classroom when the children have made something they would like to show their parents, we have a table for them to display what they have made to take a photo of it to print out for them to take home. In thinking about this instead of us taking photo, why aren't the children taking the photo, it is their work right? why not let them take ownership of it and how proud would they be holding their photo they took and showing their parents. Too often the adults or educators take over and just do it because it's easier, when really, we aren't teaching them anything but that an adult will do it. One night I was scrolling through Facebook and I had seen this photo that someone had shared with a saying on it and it said,

When you cut it for me, write it for me, find it for me, open it for me, tie it for me. . . All I learn is that you do it better than me.
If we don't allow children the time to do all those things, including teaching them technology, how are we teaching them to be capable and independent human beans to contribute into society.

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Sara DeWitt: 3 fears about screen time for kids -- and why they're not true

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We check our phones upwards of 50 times per day -- but when our kids play around with them, we get nervous. Are screens ruining childhood? Not according to children's media expert Sara DeWitt.

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Coming into this weekend I was excited but also, I didn't really know what to expect as, using technology in my everyday life I feel confident but when it comes to teaching and providing technology for children I get a bit stuck. I guess I was nervous and felt out of my comfort zone as I didn't really know what to expect in how to use technology with children as previously I have said that my education as been more based on tangible objects rather than technology. I was surprised at what was shown to us at the weekend some of the ideas were so simple yet so effective for children to engage with. Sometimes I think we try and overthink our experiences that we try to implement where I try and always remind myself of what a teacher had once told me is that less is more for children. Same with technology, for me if I over complicate something then I get confused and then the children get confused and the experience just won’t go to plan and most likely it wouldn't happen again because it didn't work.

In thinking about my assignment and what my ideas were for my project with technology, I wanted to base it at my work so that I could have a chance to personally experience implementing technology. I really had thought of one idea that I brought to the weekend to talk to my peers about which was implementing Story Park which is an online tool to share the children's portfolios and learning to the parents. At our service we are experiencing a gap with parent input from what the children are learning as we are receiving little to no input from parents. We have the children's portfolios in the room, but parents don't have time to read their stories at drop off and pick up times as they are in a hurry to get to work or to get home. A way that we have thought to provide a tool to make it more accessible is through Story Park. When I had brought this idea up at the weekend another peer said that they use story park and it's great! They get lots of parent input and parents have more knowledge of what's happening and even more prompts to talk to their children about their day. Another peer said that as a mum, her child's kinder uses something similar and it's great for the communication between the teachers and herself to see what her child is up to and what she is learning, and she can provide instant feedback to the teachers. I think as I said earlier, implementing something with the parents first might influence positive thoughts on technology to then be easier to implement more technology with the children if they are engaging with it more.

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Document and support children's learning, together

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Going on from the intensive weekend, I am feeling more confident in providing children with purposeful and effective use of technology but still have an uneasiness of parent’s expectations. So, moving forward in my thinking and confidence I think I need to investigate and be more confident in knowing what our Framework guides us in using technology with children and how children should be engaging in it.

Reading through the Victorian Early Years and Learning Development Framework (2016) there are a couple of areas where technology has been addressed which were in

"Outcome 4 - Children are confident and involved learners.
-Children teach others and broaden their learning about the world through connecting with people, places, technologies and natural materials.
-They investigate what products and systems
can do, and how they work. Increasingly, they begin to
use information and communication technologies to assist their thinking and to represent what they know
and understand."

"Outcome 5 - Children are Effective Communicators.
-They use digital technologies and multimedia resources to
communicate, play and learn. They create and display
their own information in a way that suits different
audiences and purposes."
-"As children continue to build their skills in reading printed text from left to right and top to bottom (in English language households), they use information in context from pictures and other sources to assist in making
meaning."

Looking into the framework it is clear to see that the use of technology with children are embedded into the framework which means that within the programs we set for the children, we need to be incorporating technology into these programs as well. This is where as educators and meaning myself, need to become more confident in knowing that what I am planning for is all okay to do, I have the framework to help educate to the parents that technology is a part of our teaching practices and involving children, especially in this technological society, there is a reason for it. So, moving forward with my project of Story park for the parents, I will continue to investigate any more policies or regulations on technology and some research into the little to no input from families on children's learning and on the program set for the children.