I've never been a - how does the wider internet phrase it? - "hur-bur, fire is scary, technology is bad, Thomas Edison was a witch" sort of person. I am eternally impressed and awed by the way our world uses and changes technology; sufficiently advanced technology, after all, is indistinguishable from magic. (Thanks for that one, Arthur C. Clarke!) This is why I've been so surprised, this semester, at how hard it's been for me to incorporate technology into a hypothetical classroom. Technology as a lesson planning tool? Absolutely. Technology as a teaching tool? Sure, why not? But technology at the hands of my students? It's something I'm surprisingly reluctant about.
Keep in mind, of course, that I'm an early childhood educator. Something that's been impressed upon me over my past two semesters learning about early childhood education is the importance of play in child development. If you've ever taken a childhood development or curriculum class, you're probably nodding along with me right now, but let me catch up the rest of you: play is the most important part of child development. Children who don't play don't develop properly. This is why early childhood and preschool classrooms have "centers," areas in the classroom devoted to different types of play. What's the problem with technology, then? Can't kids play with technology? Doesn't this, in fact, increase our abilities to engage children, and increase the options we have with which to engage children?
Well, yes. Here's the thing, though: play via technology, whether it be a tablet, a computer, or anything else, is inherently limited. It can address some fine motor skills and a variety of cognitive and linguistic skills, both of which are important domains of development. Technology as it exists now, though, cannot address gross motor development or sociodramatic play, for example. Are there teachers out there, full of ingenuity, who have figured out how to do so? Absolutely. But if our early childhood classrooms grow too dependent on technology, these things will fall to the wayside. I don't believe the development offered by technology is demonstrably better than that offered by grounded, physical play, and I feel the risks of using technology for the purpose of play outweigh the benefits.
For this reason, I don't envision a classroom where every student gets a tablet or a computer. I don't particularly want any tablets or computers in my classroom at all. Technology for class-wide use is another story, however. A smart board or a projector can be utilized in many ways during group learning times, to display anything from videos to games to artwork. A speaker system for piping music would be great for dance and movement activities as well as transitions in the classroom. There are a large number of text-free games and apps that would be just as effective on a large screen, as a whole class activity, than on a small screen for an individual. I believe there are many ways for me to teach technological literacy without depending on systems I don't support.
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