What Research Says About Technology & Child Development

I found an article titled, "Technology in Early Childhood Education; Finding the Balance" and it the article it discussed that from birth to age 8 there are 5 essential areas of development. These being: 1. social and emotional, 2. language, 3. motor/large muscle, 4. cognitive, 5. learning approach. This particular article looks at how technology ties into the key areas of a child's development. One thing that the article stated that I agree with is that the use of technology allows children the opportunity to increase their language and promote literacy. The use of technology also provides children an addtional method to their learning. All children learn differently and many children enjoy exploring on a computer. Using a computer as a teaching method is just one way to teach to your students strenghts. A couple of the downsides to the use of technology and early childhood are the lack of excercise it provides. Another being that the use of technology can create a decrease in creativity if children aren't using the appropriate software.
I thought that it was a interesting article and I liked the way that it pointed out not only the positive aspects of this topic but that it also provided some concerns with children and technology. The thing that I really took from this article is that the use of technology can provide some wonderful experiences for children and in the classroom it is up to us as teachers to provide appropriate software and monitor the length of time the children are spending on the computer.
If you would like to view this article check it out at
www.nwrel.org/request/june01/child.html