Supporting Sustainable Quality Education for Young Children with the Integration of Technology into Learning
摘要
Providing a quality early childhood education to all children is the goal of many countries across the world and aligns with the Sustainable Development Goals. In Australia, where this research takes place, technology is considered an important part of early childhood education and the formal years of schooling to support young children’s learning about and with technology. Technology is embedded within the curricula frameworks, where there is a responsibility for teachers to implement suitable technology pedagogy and practices. For teachers to have proficient knowledge and skills, it is appropriate that early childhood teacher education educates future teachers about technology. In this chapter, we conduct a content analysis of current technology with Australian early childhood education to see what exposure future early childhood teachers have to support quality technology education. The aim was to explore the provision of technology in ealry childhood teacher education. Over 100 programs were reviewed to explore the amount of technology in early childhood teacher education. Findings show that technology within early childhood teacher education could be improved. Some programs did not have specific courses on technology, while some programs had technology blended with other content areas during the course (such as arts). We suggest that if we really do want to provide young children with quality early childhood education, we must also look at what occurs at early childhood teacher education, who are the future teachers of young children.