The Importance Of ICT In Preschool
The knowledge and use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) should be promoted from an early age, hence the importance of ICT in preschool.
The preschool stage, or Early Childhood Education, is the educational stage that serves boys and girls from birth to six years of age. It is ordered in two cycles; the first, which includes up to 3 years, and the second, which ranges from 3 to 6 years. It is precisely from this second cycle that children must have their first contact with ICT.
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)
ICTs are all those resources, tools and programs that are used to process, manage and share information through various technological supports, such as computers, mobile phones, televisions, game consoles, etc.
Currently, ICTs play a fundamental role because they offer all the services that so-called users are used to using in our day to day life, such as email, chats , browsing the web and searching for all kinds of information. .
ICTs put at our fingertips a multiplicity of information and data, for which it is necessary to develop certain technical skills related to the use of technologies, as well as specific skills related to the interpretation of that information, since not all of the information that circulates on the net is complete and is totally truthful.
The importance of ICT in preschool
The knowledge and use of ICT in preschool age is important, since it allows children to develop different skills. In the first place, skills related to the same use of a computer or tablet , such as tactile, auditory and visual skills.
Second, develop other skills derived from the didactic programs, games or applications they face.
That is, the use of ICT allows and accompanies the cognitive development of preschool children. Contact from a very young age, always mediated by their teachers, with a computer, a mobile phone or any other technological device facilitates and supports their learning.
The use of technologies in the classroom motivates them, allows them to search for information and generate strategies, making small decisions to do so, to choose it, filter it and select it.
Contributions of ICT in the preschool classroom
- They stimulate creativity.
- They provoke experimentation.
- They allow each student to progress according to their learning rhythms.
- They develop incipient research strategies.
- They arouse curiosity.
- They develop increasing autonomy.
- They motivate learning.
- They help in the development of hand-eye coordination.
ICT in preschool: aspects to consider
So far we have talked about the advantages or the importance of ICT in preschool. However, we cannot fail to highlight those aspects that may be negative if they are misused or overused.
In the preschool stage, an education based on play and real experience with objects, in contact with others and with nature, in reading stories, in emotional and social development should prevail .
Although through the use of technologies a social, cooperative and collaborative development can be promoted, nothing compares with socialization between people, with physical contact and face-to-face.
On the other hand, it is necessary to limit the use of ICT in preschool, since a prolonged exposure can be detrimental, at a postural level, promote a sedentary life and antisocial behaviors.
Finally, any use of technologies in the preschool stage, and in the subsequent educational stages, must be done from the permanent mediation of educators.
They must teach how new technologies work and are manipulated, but they must also educate in a critical and responsible use of the information that circulates through them.
ICTs offer us infinite possibilities of immediate access to information. But children must learn to interpret the large volume of information to which they will be exposed. The information, on many occasions, is not complete, is biased, and must always be contextualized.
