In one of the corners of the main room, we have a
reading area. Besides the shelves of normal story books, there’s a stereo
corner with a shelf full of story books with digital resource. This stereo
corner has its own set of table, chairs and a stereo. The books in this corner
all have either tape or CD with them. Children are free to turn the stereo on
and read the books along the recorded stories. The corner contains classic
stories, new stories, and popular stories around the children.
The children love this digital-reading corner and have
their own favourite stories here. Most children can use the stereo quite well.
They even teach their friends to use the stereo and have fun reading the
stories together! This shows that most of the children already have the
skills to control the stereo. They are also competent enough to help each other
solving problems in using technology. Therefore, the children are gaining their
growing understanding of how technologies can help them and others (Ministry of
Education, 1996), in this case, by using the stereo to help a child himself and
his friend to read the stories. The children literally run the corner
themselves. Sometimes they would grab my hand and ask me to join. Learning to
use the stereo helps children to develop working theories for making sense of
the modern technological world (Ministry of Education, 1996). Being capable of
using the stereo gives them the strategies and confidence for actively
exploring and making sense of the world by using technological equipments
(Ministry of Education, 1996). Constantly having the stereo available for
children provides them rich opportunities to experience some of the technology
and resources for reading (Ministry of Education, 1996).
What captures the children’s interest in the stereo
corner? Besides the popularity of the stories, I think there are two key
advantages included: children taking control and developing self-help skills.
First of all, children may have a sense of achievement controlling the stereo.
In early childhood settings, stereos are normally used for mat time by
teachers. At mat time, there are rules and boundaries that teachers are mostly
in control of choosing the stories and using the stereo. Controlling the stereo
not only empowers the children’s literature learning, but also enables their
sense of belonging. Managing a machine that can read stories nice and loud
would make the children feel that they are playing an active part in the
running of the daily routine (Ministry of Education, 1996). Second of all, the
self-helping structure makes story-reading simple for the children. Children at
the stage of early childhood (before school age) are not able to read. They
need support for reading a story. Instead of asking a busy teacher to sit down
and read a story for them, turning on the stereo by a press of a button seems
much simpler for the children. The stereo helps children to take responsibility
for their own learning (Ministry of Education, 1996). Hence, the technology of
the stereo expands children’s development of literature learning, sense of
belonging, as well as it addressing their needs by enriching working theories
self-help skills (Ministry of Education, 1996; Ministry of Education 2007).
Extending
from the use of the stereo, technology resources like computer and walky talkie
all have the same purpose --- help people and solve problems (Smorti, 1999).
Teaching children technology is about teaching the ability of using technology.
It's about the ability to make life easier. It is us teachers’ responsibility
to teach the children to use the powerful tool of technology to become
independent, life-long learners.
References:
Ministry of Education. (2007). The New Zealand curriculum. Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media.
Ministry of Education. (1996). Te Whāriki: He whāriki mātauranga mo ngā mokopuna o Aotearoa: Early childhood curriculum. Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media.
Smorti,
S. (1999, Autumn) Technology in early childhood. Early Education, 19.
