Technology in early childhood: defining the problem

I’m delighted to share that a short research paper I co-wrote with Professor Nóirín Hayes, Technology in Early Childhood Education and Care: Defining the Problem, has been published in the Digital Technologies Research Bulletin from the Children’s Research Network (CRN).

About the Children’s Research Network

The Children’s Research Network for Ireland and Northern Ireland is an independent, all-island membership network for anyone involved in research with and for children and young people. This bulletin is the first from its Digital Technologies Special Interest Group, which brings together researchers across the island of Ireland who study children’s lives with digital technologies.

What our paper is about

Digital technologies are now part of young children’s everyday lives, yet early childhood educators have little guidance on how to use them. Aistear, the early childhood curriculum framework in Ireland, lists a wide range of digital devices but does not say how they might support children’s learning, and the Digital Strategy for Schools to 2027 does not cover the early years. We wanted to understand how educators make sense of digital play when clear guidance and resources are largely missing.

What we found

We interviewed ten qualified early childhood educators working in preschools across Ireland. Five themes came through:

1. A strong belief in sensory, nature-based and hands-on play
2. Openness to digital tools when they are used with intention and balance
3. Ethical questions and tensions around professional identity
4. Views about children and families that were sometimes based on assumptions rather than conversation
5. A gap between what policy asks for and what is possible in practice

One finding stood out. Some educators who seemed reluctant were held back by a lack of resources, not by their beliefs. A few preschools had used tablets until they broke and had no funding to replace them. When access to digital tools depends on a setting’s budget, inequality is built into the system.

What needs to change

We call for ongoing professional development in using technology with young children, real conversations between home and school about children’s digital lives and policy that moves beyond defining technology to showing how it can be used in meaningful ways. Fair investment in resources is needed too, so that every educator can offer high-quality digital play and not only those in well-resourced settings.

Thank you to the CRN for including our work in this bulletin.

Please find the published version below. It is also available on the CRN website.