Adults are aware of technology - we remember a time before some of it existed - but young children have never known a time without it. New technology that wows adults is as normal as paper and pencil to a child.
Children are not frightened by it, but grasp it firmly and stubbornly experiment, explore and trial it until the technology works. Consequently, they need support in seeing how technology affects everyday life and its use as a tool. Our planning needs to address these issues.
* Technology walkabout: walk through your setting and surrounding area, taking digital photos of technology in action. Make these into a PowerPoint presentation and scribe for the children the text to go with each image.
* Technology role play: role play areas need to reflect the technology in the real world. This could be through the use of mock machines (eg cardboard-box petrol pump), outdated technology (eg old mobile phones or computer keyboards), play technology (toy kettles, irons, toasters etc) or real technology. Children need experience of controlling this 'everyday technology'. Think about building your role-play area around your computer area. The computer could have a word processor running to type lists or charts, or My World screens, or one of the excellent 'At The ....' role play games from Granada Learning. See www.hitchams.suffolk.sch.uk/foundation/roleplay for more information.
* Remote control buggies and Pixies: these are great ways to teach control technology and support the children's concept of issuing an ordered series of commands to get a piece of technology to do something. This sort of equipment can be used in a plethora of ways, too numerous to list here, but here are some: small world play, numeracy number lines, dance, art (by dressing them up) and much more. Have a look at the Pixie centre (www.hitchams. suffolk.sch.uk/foundation/pixie) and the remote control buggies centre (www.hitchams.suffolk.sch.uk/ foundation/mybot/actionwheeler.htm) to find out more.
* Virtual control: children need to find a way in to transferring the control they exercise in real life to a virtual environment on the computer. 2Simple Software's '2Go', a program in its excellent Infant Video Toolkit, is just right for this. What's more, it can be easily customised to aid the transition between a Pixie and programming in Logo.
By Andrew Trythall, ICT co-ordinator and year 1 teacher at Sir Robert Hitcham's CEVAP School, Suffolk (www.hitchams.suffolk.sch.uk)
