How are you preparing young children for a world filled with digital technology? Technology use of our youngest learners is a hotly debated topic. From governments to parents and from learning outcomes to screen-time rules, everyone has an opinion on the ‘right’ approach. Meanwhile, many young children encounter digital technology as a part of their world at home. For example in the UK, 87 percent of 3- to 4-year-olds and 93 percent of 5- to 7-year-olds went online at home in 2023. Schools should be no different.

As educators, we have a responsibility to prepare learners for life in a digital world. We want them to understand its uses, to be aware of its risks, and to have access to the wide range of experiences unavailable without it. And we especially need to consider the children who do not encounter technology at home. Education should be a great equaliser, so we need to ensure all our youngest learners have access to the skills they need to realise their full potential.

Exploring technology and the world

A major aspect of early-years or kindergarten education is about learners sharing their world with each other and discovering that everyone has different experiences and does things in their own way. Using digital technology is no different.

Allowing learners to share their experiences of using digital technology both accepts the central role of technology in our lives today and also introduces them to its broader uses in helping people to learn, talk to others, have fun, and do work. At home, many young learners may use technology to do just one of these things. Expanding their use of technology can encourage them to explore a wider range of skills and to see technology differently.

In their classroom environment, these explorations can first take place as part of the roleplay area of a classroom, where learners can use toys to show how they have seen people use technology. It may seem counterintuitive that play-based use of non-digital toys can contribute to reducing the digital divide, but if you don’t know what technology can do, how can you go about learning to use it? There is also a range of digital roleplay apps (such as the Toca Boca apps) that allow learners to recreate their experiences of real-world situations, such as visiting the hospital, a hair salon, or an office. Such apps are great tools for extending roleplay areas beyond the resources you already have.

Another aspect of a child’s learning that technology can facilitate is their understanding of the world beyond their local community. Technology allows learners to explore the wider world and follow their interests in ways that are otherwise largely inaccessible. For example:

• Using virtual reality apps, such as Expeditions Pro, which lets learners explore Antarctica or even the bottom of the ocean
• Using augmented reality apps, such as Octagon Studio’s 4D+ cards, which make sea creatures and other animals pop out of learners’ screens
• Doing a joint project with a class of children in another country, where learners blog or share ‘email’ with each other

Each of these opportunities gives children a richer understanding of the world while they use technology in meaningful ways.

Technology as a learning tool

Beyond helping children to better understand our world, technology offers opportunities to be expressive and imaginative. For example, alongside your classroom art activities, how about using an app like Draw & Tell, which helps learners draw pictures and then record themselves explaining what they are drawing? Or what about using filters on photographs to create artistic portraits of themselves or their favourite toys? Digital technology should be part of the range of tools learners can access for creative play and expression, particularly where it offers opportunities that analogue tools don’t.

Using technology is also invaluable for learners who struggle with communication and language skills. When speaking is something you find challenging, it can often be intimidating to talk to others who speak much more confidently. But speaking to a tablet? A tablet only speaks as well as you do. Apps to record sounds and listen back to them are a helpful way for young children to learn about how clear their speech is and practise speech exercises. ChatterPix Kids is a great tool for this. It lets learners take a photo of an object, e.g. their favourite soft toy, and record themselves talking about it. When they play back the recording, the app makes it look like the toy is saying their words. This is a very engaging way for young learners to practise communicating.

Technology is part of young people’s world

No matter how we feel about the role of technology in the lives of young people, it is a part of their world. We need to ensure we are giving all learners opportunities to develop digital skills and understand the role of technology, including how people can use it for social good.

This is not just about preparing them for their computing education (although that’s definitely a bonus!) or about online safety (although this is vital — see my articles in Hello World issue 15 and issue 19 for more about the topic). It’s about their right to be active citizens in the digital world.

So I ask again: how are you preparing young children for a digital world?

Subscribe to the Hello World digital edition for free

The first experiences children have with learning about computing and digital technologies are formative. That’s why primary computing education should be of interest to all educators, no matter what the age of your learners is. This issue covers for example:

• Instilling a sense of belonging in children
• Using picture books to introduce programming concepts to children
• Perfecting typing skills
• Cross-curricular project ideas to keep young learners engaged at the end of primary school

And there’s much more besides. So don’t miss out on this upcoming issue of Hello World — subscribe for free today to receive every PDF edition in your inbox on the day of publication.

The post Preparing young children for a digital world | Hello World #21 appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.

Kakuma camp was set up in Kenya in 1992, following a civil war in neighbouring South Sudan in East Africa. The UNHCR estimates that 200,000 people live in the camp today, although other data sources may record larger numbers of residents. 6 out of 10 people living in Kakuma camp are age 18 or younger.

We’ve designed a 100-hour, 10-week course called Using online digital technologies to create change for the Amala learners in Kakuma camp. The course focused on digital skills including making media and websites, with its content we adapted from our Computing Curriculum. The course pilot was delivered alongside Amala’s High School Diploma programme, which is the first internationally accredited course programme enabling refugee and host community youth to complete their education through flexible study.

Our thanks go to the Ezrah Charitable Trust for generously funding our work in this partnership.

Sharing lessons we are learning

We are learning a lot during this pilot, so we are writing a set of three blogs to share these lessons with you.

Today’s blog is Amala Education‘s perspective on their learners in Kakuma Camp, the purpose of digital skills education, and the course design and facilitation. We will also share our approach to adapting learning resources for the context of the Amala learners and using data to assess the course, and what other support we’ve put in place to ensure this educational project is self-sustaining.

Want to make computing education meaningful? Make it connect to learners’ lived experience

By Polly Akhurst (Co-founder and Co-Executive Director, Amala Education), Louie Barnett (Education Lead, Amala Education) & Ajak Mayen Jok (Programme Coordinator, Amala Education)

Our learners wanted a course that develops not just their digital literacy, but one that aligns with Amala’s agency-based learning model, which gives young people the skills to improve their communities. Many of our learners have limited experience of using digital tools but a huge desire to develop these skills, which they see as essential to improving their lives and the lives of their community members.

So we knew we needed a course that not just builds learners’ technical knowledge and skills but can also enrich their lived experience. 

How would we do it? 

Enter the Raspberry Pi Foundation team. We combined Amala’s agency-based educational approach with the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s experience in pedagogy and teaching about technology and digital literacy to design a course that truly resonates with our learners.

Developing a relevant digital skills course

Before developing the course, the Raspberry Pi Foundation team held focus groups with facilitators and learners in Kakuma camp to understand their needs. This helped them to pitch the 100 hours of course materials at the right level for the learners.

We called the course Using online technologies to create change. It takes the learners on a journey, building their foundation elements of computing and digital literacy. Learners start by finding out how digital devices work using input, process, and output. Then they move on to understanding computer networks. The course includes hands-on activities related to creating media, like filming and reviewing content and creating and choosing sounds to use in a podcast. There is also some light-touch web development with HTML and JavaScript. At the end of the course, learners design and deliver a presentation that reflects the work they’ve completed.

“Before I joined the course, I really didn’t know much about how to operate technology, but through the learning and the process, now I am able to learn something that will be beneficial for me and the people in my community.” — Learner in Kakuma refugee camp

Throughout the course, learners use their newly gained skills and knowledge to make their own project aimed at creating positive change. One example project is this website developed by Shyaka Cedric and other learners, which shares how podcasts and remote learning helped their community stay safe and healthy during the pandemic. Another group of learners used their photography and design skills to develop ID cards to keep Amala students safe within the camp. Having an Amala student ID card protects learners because they can prove their identity to their community and the police.

Facilitators from the camp make the course relatable

One of the great things about this course is that the Amala facilitators who taught the learners look, speak, and sound like them. Amala facilitators are from within the camp, and that they are relatable is great for learners’ self-confidence.

Having the course facilitated by fellow refugees removes the stigmatisation that the learners are vulnerable and sets the precedent that they can do anything if they put their mind to it.

“It gave me power of… getting involved with new things…Any challenge that comes my way I am willing to take after the Raspberry Pi class now…” — Learner in Kakuma refugee camp

While the Raspberry Pi Foundation team worked to make the course content relevant for the learners, our facilitators further localised the content to ensure its relatability for learners. Local contextualisation helps students to understand what they are learning, and to identify with the content — it’s not something out of the blue for them. Localisation is also important because it helps implement one of Amala’s cornerstones: decolonising the African curriculum.

Digital literacy is an urgent need

Because the learners in Kakuma camp lead complex social lives and face high levels of precarity, we decided to make the pilot course optional through our existing Diploma programme. We anticipated a modest enrollment rate, but instead over 100 people within the Amala learner community expressed an interest in this 75-person course. This showed us that the value and urgency of digital literacy in refugee communities is more pertinent than ever.

In a world where a lack of access to technology and digital skills exacerbates existing inequalities, it is critically important for young people who are disadvantaged to access meaningful learning opportunities. As one learner put it:

“I want to study this course because the current world is a digital world and I would like to acquire the skills to boost my computer skills and be able to help myself by getting a job and transforming the community through the digital world.” — Learner in Kakuma refugee camp

So what’s happening next?

We have a blueprint of what works in Kakuma refugee camp, and we are also learning what doesn’t. Bringing these lessons together will help us offer the course to more learners in Kakuma, and adapt the content in other locations, like our site in Amman, Jordan. 

Look out for our follow-up blogs about the support we put in place to enable learners in Kakuma camp to participate in the course, and how we worked to create course content that is suitable for them.

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