Using apps and websites to support children’s interests and skills
About this resource
These tip sheets provide ideas for using mobile applications (apps) and websites to support young children’s interests and skill development.
Age range for this resource
For educators, parents, and carers of children aged 3 to 5 years.
Goal of this resource
To provide opportunities for young children to follow their interests and/or acquire and develop their skills using mobile applications (apps) or websites with adult supervision.
How might educators use this resource?
Share these tip sheets with colleagues to stimulate discussion about the types of mobile applications and websites that could be used at your service to support children’s interests and/or skill development. Engage your colleagues in conversations about how the mobile applications and websites included in the tip sheets might be used to scaffold play-based learning experiences between educators and children and inclusive co-play opportunities among child peers.
How might families use this resource?
Draw on the ideas in these tip sheets to consider how you might use mobile applications and/or websites in your home to support your child’s interests and skill development.
How might organisations use this resource?
Include links to these tip sheets in your organisation’s communication to educators and/or families. Highlight how educator provision of play-based learning activities using digital technologies (e.g., mobile applications, websites) is a requirement of Belonging, Being, and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia V2.0 (Australian Government Department of Education, 2022). Prepare a short statement for sharing such as: ‘Young children benefit from using digital technologies, such as educational apps and websites, to support their interests and skill development.’
What learning might we see?
Educators, parents, and carers using mobile applications and websites to support children’s skill development and interests.
Young children using mobile applications and websites with adult supervision for meaningful and purposeful learning activities.
Practices
Acknowledging
Adults notice and recognise children’s interests in and experiences of using digital technologies and interacting with digital media and popular culture.
Interpreting
Children interpret their experiences with digital technologies and media through play and in discussion and collaboration with others.
Integrating
Children and adults integrate digital technologies with non-digital media and/or experiences.
Area
Play and Pedagogy
Young children have opportunities for play and pedagogy in digital contexts. Play and pedagogy involve children using a range of digital devices for exploration, meaning-making, collaboration, and problem solving. Educators engage in active decision making about the use and non-use of digital technologies for learning.
Connection to relevant standards
Belonging, Being, and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia V2.0 (Australian Government Department of Education, 2022)
Outcome 1: Children have a strong sense of identity
Children develop their emerging autonomy, inter-dependence, resilience, and agency (e.g. Children approach new safe situations with interest and confidence).
Children learn to interact in relation to others with care, empathy, and respect (e.g., Children co-use and collaborate with others when using digital technologies).
Outcome 2: Children are connected with and contribute to their world
Children develop a sense of connectedness to groups and communities and an understanding of their reciprocal rights and responsibilities as active and informed citizens (e.g., Children use digital technologies, with assistance, to explore solutions or assistance to community issues; Educators use digital technologies and the internet with children to explore solutions or assistance to community issues).
Children respond to diversity with respect (e.g., Educators use digital technologies to find answers to questions and document discoveries).
Outcome 3: Children have a strong sense of wellbeing
Children become strong in their social, emotional, and mental wellbeing (e.g., Educators discuss and model appropriate use of digital technologies and discuss how to keep children safe online with children and families).
Outcome 4: Children are confident and involved learners
Children develop a growth mindset and learning dispositions such as curiosity, cooperation, confidence, creativity, commitment, enthusiasm, persistence, imagination, and reflexivity (e.g., Educators model inquiry processes, including wonder, curiosity, and imagination, try new ideas and take on challenges).
Children develop a range of learning and thinking skills and processes such as problem solving, inquiry, experimentation, hypothesising, researching, and investigating (e.g., Children explore their environment through asking questions, experimenting, investigating, and using digital technologies).
Children resource their own learning through connecting with people, place, technologies, and natural and processed materials (e.g., Children explore the purpose and function of a range of tools, media, sounds, and graphics; Children use digital technologies and media to investigate and problem solve; Children express and respond to ideas and feelings using a range of creative media including photography and digital technologies; Educators select and introduce appropriate tools, technologies, and media and provide the skills, knowledge, and techniques to enhance children’s learning; Educators develop their skills and knowledge with digital technologies and media in their curriculum to use them confidently with children).
Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators
Children express ideas and make meaning using a range of media (e.g., Children experiment with ways of expressing ideas and meaning using a range of media; Children display literacy behaviours by incorporating reading and writing approximations and viewing in their play, including digital technologies).
Children use digital technologies and media to access information, investigate ideas, and represent their thinking (e.g., Children develop simple skills to operate digital devices, such as turning on and taking a photo with a tablet; Children use digital technologies and media for creative expression, e.g. designing, drawing, composing; Educators teach skills and techniques and encourage children to use technologies to explore new information and represent their ideas; Educators integrate technologies across the curriculum and into children’s multimodal play experiences and projects; Educators acknowledge technologies are a feature of children’s lives and, as such, will be a feature of their imaginative and investigative play).
National Quality Standard (Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority, 2019)
Quality Area 1: Educational program and practice (e.g., Each child’s current knowledge, strengths, ideas, culture, abilities, and interests are the foundation of the program; Educators are deliberate, purposeful, and thoughtful in their decisions and actions; Educators respond to children’s ideas and play and extend children’s learning through open-ended questions, interactions, and feedback; Each child’s agency is promoted, enabling them to make choices and decisions that influence events and their world).
Quality Area 2: Children’s health and safety (e.g., At all times, reasonable precautions and adequate supervision ensure children are protected from harm and hazard)
Quality Area 3: Physical Environment (e.g., Resources, materials, and equipment allow for multiple uses, are sufficient in number, and enable every child to engage in play-based learning).
Quality Area 5: Relationships with children (e.g., Responsive and meaningful interactions build trusting relationships which engage and support each child to feel secure, confident, and included; The dignity and rights of every child are maintained; Children are supported to collaborate, learn from, and help each other).
National Principles for Child Safe Organisations (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2018)
Principle 4: Equity is upheld and diverse needs respected in policy and practice.
Principle 8: Physical and online environments promote safety and wellbeing while minimising the opportunity for children and young people to be harmed.
Explore more
If these ideas are new to you, explore this related resource:
When the dinosaurs came to kindy
This video presentation explores how early childhood educators can connect with children’s interests using digital technologies.
Technologies used in play
This infographic provides illustrative examples of how educators can use different technologies to support children’s digital literacy learning.
For more ideas about using technologies to support children’s learning, explore these related resources:
Using digital technology with children: Tips
This Raising Children Network article offers useful tips on using digital technologies with your child.
Everyday learning to build young children’s digital technology skills
This webinar explores how early childhood professionals can support children’s conceptual understandings of, and skill development with, digital technologies.
If you would like to read some research, explore these related resources:
Grieshaber, S., Nuttall, J., & Edwards, S. (2021). Multimodal play: A threshold concept for early childhood curriculum? British Journal of Educational Technology, 52(6), 2118–2129. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.13127
Edwards, S., Mantilla, A., Grieshaber, S., Nuttall, J., & Wood, E. (2020). Converged play characteristics for early childhood education: Multimodal, global-local, and traditional-digital. Oxford Review of Education, 46(5), 637–660. https://doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2020.1750358