Learning through ICT in Swedish Early Childhood Education from a pedagogical perspective of quality

Childhood Education, 2003 by Sheridan, Sonja, Samuelsson, Ingrid Pramling

What Does It Take To Develop a Technology-Literate Child?

Pramling Samuelsson and Asplund Carlsson (in press) claim that a pedagogical perspective of learning should be regarded as separate from a perspective of psychology and sociology. They argue that the main focus should not be on a description of how things are, but rather on what education should contribute to a child's learning process. Incorporating this idea into a perspective of ICT means that technology should be seen in the light of how it ought to be used as a tool to promote learning, in relation to the overall goals for preschools and schools.

From a pedagogical perspective of quality, we will discuss how the process of acquiring the technology, and helping children become confident users of that technology, depends on several aspects of quality education settings, as well as on the social and cultural values and traditions in the Swedish society. Aspects of educational practice and values for learning are inseparable, influencing and constantly interacting with one another; together, they shape children's potential to become skillful users of ICT. Therefore, a school's level of pedagogical quality is the result of how those aspects are made to interact with one another in promoting a child's learning and development in the area of ICT (for further definition of pedagogical quality, see Sheridan, 2001).

Those aspects of quality can be described from three perspectives (Karrby, Sheridan, Giota, Daversjo Ogefelt, & Bjorck, in press). The structural perspective concerns the physical and material resources related to ICT. The child's perspective concerns how children experience and handle ICT, and for what uses. Several studies show that children, both in preschool and school, experience ICT as play and treat it as such (Alexandersson, Linderoth, & Lindo, 2001; Klerfelt, 2002; Klerfelt, Gustafsson, Mellgren, & Pramling Samuelsson, 1999a, 1999b, 1999c; Linderoth, 2002; Linderoth & LantzAndersson, 2002; Nielsen & Nielsen, 1998; Papert, 1998). Finally, the didactic perspective focuses on how teachers interact with the children to promote learning. Children's ICT learning is significantly affected by teachers' pedagogical awareness, education, and ability to meet each child's interests and support, stimulate, and challenge their learning, through ICT, in the direction of the overall goals (Pramling Samuelsson & Sheridan, 1999; Sheridan, 2001).

Certain conditions characterize different levels of pedagogical quality in the area of ICT. First, we would like to emphasize that one cannot separate ICT as a tool and ICT as content. These aspects are very closely linked. As Nielsen and Nielsen (1998, p. 27) say:

Focus must be on "the content of learning" and not on "the technique as such," since we know that the choice of hard- and software determines what possible learning can take place, what content the learner gets, how it is organized, and not least what are the mediated messages about the "nature" of the technology and its possible usefulness in the teaching. (Authors' translation)