Preschoolers and Mobile Technology

A November 2010 report describes the affects of new media and mobile technologies on young children and their families. The report, Learning: Is there an app for that?, touts the educational benefits of well-designed mobile apps for preschoolers. It also cites the reality of preschoolers using mobile devices--often, their parent's device passed to them in the backseat, a phenomenon labeled the "pass-back" effect. I'm familiar with the practice.

This Tech & Learning article summarizes the findings of the report and provides additional information. For example, a 2009 content analysis of the iTunes App Store (education section) revealed that 60% of the top-selling paid applications targeted toddlers and preschoolers.

When I upgraded my smartphone recently, I removed the sim card from my old iPhone and Magda set it up for Lucy to use as an iPod Touch. When I commented about this recently in a backchannel during class, one of our students (future teacher) asked what does a 3-year old need with an iPod? Well, Lucy loves to...

• Take pictures--even photo essays of sorts of her dolls and environment. 
• Swipe thru pictures she has taken and also of our family and friends
• Watch movies--home movies from our Flip camera, episodes of her favorite shows, movies downloaded from YouTube (her channel and others)
• Record and listen to herself singing songs--sometimes to recall the melody of a song to begin singing it. 
• Listen to music
• Play--some apps support cognitive development while others build fine motor skills (psychomotor) or appeal to her emotionally (affective domain).
• Explore. She's just curious to figure out what the device can do. I believe this is particularly important, because she is developing a fluency with new interfaces and input devices (gestures, voice recognition, etc.). 

Now, we just need to mount one of these interactive displays on the wall in her preschool classroom!

Update:
Lucy's teacher, Donna, just directed me to this related Sesame Street video. :-)