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COPYRIGHT 2002 Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE)
The use of computers in early years has become a contentious issue, with advocates calling for more Information and Communications Technology (ICT), more machines, better software, and more training for professionals, while other groups call for "a moratorium on the further introduction of computers in early childhood and elementary education" (Cordes & Miller, 2000).
The authors of this article would like to declare their allegiances here: they are in favour of computers in the same way that they are in favour of books, pencils, worksheets, Lego, jigsaws, junk modelling, role play, and circle time. Activities and equipment in early years are, in themselves, neither positive or negative: it is the way in which they are used which is meaningful. Any of the things on their list can (and have) been criticised as retarding or limiting children's development. They believe that children need opportunities to interact with the world at developmentally appropriate levels, to "own" the interactions, forming personal, relevant "mental furniture," organising their learning in partnership with peers and sensitive, scaffolding adults. Such activities are appropriate in that they actively engage learners and developmental in the sense that they help to support the development of children's learning. ICT has a place in this, and the burning questions are not whether computers should be u sed but where and how ICT can be used to enlarge and enrich young children's experience of learning.
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This article is divided into three main sections. In the first, the findings from a major research project investigating the effective use of computers for math and language teaching funded by the UK government are briefly summarised. This summary focuses on where these findings apply to early years teachers and their beliefs and practice in using computers. The full findings and further analysis of the interaction of teachers' beliefs and their practice and professional development are published elsewhere (Moseley, Higgins, Bramald, Hardman, Miller, Mroz, Tse, Newton, Thompson, Williamson, Halligan, Bramald, Newton, Tymms, Henderson, & Stout, 1999; Higgins & Moseley, 2001). These findings are then set in the wider context of research into computer use, particularly in early years settings in the central section of the article. The final section contains a description of one example of an action research undertaken in collaboration with the teachers involved in the UK research project which illustrates the au thors' understanding of how developmentally appropriate activities for young children in mathematics can be undertaken using computers.
EARLY YEARS PROFESSIONALS AND COMPUTERS: UK RESEARCH
In debating the appropriate use of computers in early years education there is an underpinning level to explore: whether early years professionals feel that ICT can or should form part of their ideal, espoused practice. A research project, funded by the UK government's Teacher Training Agency (TTA) (Moseley et al., 1999; Higgins & Moseley, 2001) explored teachers' constructs relating to teaching and learning and found that adopting ICT had a reciprocal relationship with teachers' beliefs. Other research has also indicated that teachers are likely to adopt practices with computers which reflect their beliefs about teaching and learning (Drenoyianni & Selwood, 1998) and, while the relationship between teacher's practices, skills, and beliefs is complex (Wild, 1996), there is some evidence that the adoption of ICT can have an impact upon teachers' thinking about effective organisation and management of learning (Dwyer, Ringstaff, & Sandholtz, 1991) and upon teachers' beliefs, teaching strategies and assessment a ctivities (Sandholtz, Ringstaff, & Dwyer, 1997).
An exploration of 75 teachers' thinking about teaching and learning activities using construct elicitation and ranking exercise was undertaken in the project. Findings from this exploration were related to other information such as computer provision and use as reported in questionnaire responses. This information was then compared with data about the relative attainment of children in reading and mathematics in these teachers' classes using "value-added" or relative pupil progress data from the Performance Indicators in Primary Schools project (PIPS) based at Durham University in England. One subgroup within the research project was made up of 29 teachers of 45- year-olds. An analysis of their thinking revealed that the only pattern of thinking which had a positive significant link with gains in pupils" attainment was having a negative attitude towards using ICT (a significant correlation of [0.45.sup.*] was found with a combined measure of relative pupil attainment for math and reading, and a correlation of [0.50.sup.**] for reading alone (see Higgins & Moseley, 2001, p. 200)). Or, in other words, teachers of 45-year-olds who were sceptical about the value of computers were more likely to be teaching classes where their children made more progress in math and reading. The interpretation of this link between scepticism about the use of computers and effective early years teachers was further confirmed by questionnaire data, which revealed that overall "value-added," or relative pupil attainment, was significantly higher for teachers of 4-5-year-olds who believed printed resources, such as books, to be better than ICT resources (r=[0.42.sup.*]) and who believed their ICT skills to be inadequate for using ICT in their teaching (r=[0.43.sup.*]).
The authors considered that this finding was a significant challenge to the effective integration of computers into early years settings, but did not interpret it as indicating that computers themselves were detrimental to learning. Rather they inferred that the teachers' beliefs were influencing the way that computers were being used. When the project examined the self-reported ICT skills of these teachers and the length of their teaching experience in relation to types of ICT usage, it emerged that more experienced reception teachers tended to have more limited ICT skills (r= [-0.65.sup.*]) than those who had entered the profession more recently. In addition, there were some interesting links with the types of use of computers reported by the teachers and their self-reported levels of ICT skill (Table 1).
More experienced teachers (who tended to report relatively low levels of computer skills) were likely to use computers infrequently for information retrieval, for children who were finished their work or as free choice activities. By contrast, teachers who reported higher levels of computer skills (and who tended to be less experienced) were likely to use the computer much more frequently for just these types of activities.
Other data from the project found that computers are commonly used in reception classes (4 - 5-year-olds) as a reward or extension activity available to pupils who have finished...
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