ABSTRACT
Today’s world is full of technology and children are becoming increasingly familiar with equipment such as digital cameras, mobile phones and computers. They also encounter ICT in their everyday lives: tills at the supermarket, barcodes and scanners, digital clocks on appliances, calculators and remote controls. Televisions now have many channels and as a result even the youngest children can tell you which three digits they need to input for their favourite channels, using remote controls to find these. ICT links naturally to mathematics in the early years and provides opportunities for children to learn skills which they will continue to develop throughout their lives. The most common piece of ICT equipment children encounter is a computer, but for the purposes of this chapter we have focused on other types of ICT appliances, as by and large Early Years software tends to be self-explanatory and specific in its nature. It is vital to expand our notion of ICT beyond the computer alone and to encourage children to access and learn to use and control a whole range of ICT equipment.
