Early Learning Goals

This can be an issue for the whole school and you should not be tackling it on your own. Here are ten tips which you can use Higgins et al. (1999):

1. Know what is expected of you; 2. Find out what children have already done; 3. Know how the previous teacher organised access to the computer; 4. Find out what children do at home; 5. Get your own routines established; 6. Have a clear idea of where you are trying to get to; 7. Use a tick list to keep track; 8. Concentrate on transferable skills; 9. Agree which programs different year groups will use; 10.Be creative too.

Using the Early Learning Goals and Curriculum Outcomes

The purpose of planning is to ensure that every child benefits from the curriculum or ELGs. ELGs are intended to help you to lay the foundation for the child’s engagement in the curriculum in the mainstream primary setting. So it is essential that these are achieved as throughout primary education, the Australian Curriculum F-2 builds on these learning goals in early childhood education.

Early Learning Goals

The Early Years Learning Framework goals are:

EYLF Children have a strong sense of identity Children are connected with and contribute to their world Children have a strong sense of wellbeing Children are confident and involved learners Children are effective communicators EYFS (UK)

Personal, social and emotional development

Understanding the world

Personal, social and emotional development; Physical development; Mathematics;

Communication and language; Literacy

It is important that you set out the environment to maximise the opportunities for learning to take place. It needs to be an environment that is underpinned by knowledge of how children develop skills, explore and grow in understanding of key concepts. Make the computer more about the general experience of play and dialogue alongside the writing area, the books, the modelling and the play equipment. The computer needs to be accessible for a range of different contexts, both collaboratively and singly.

Ensure that you are clear about which of the defined learning areas can be enriched and enhanced.

Here are some examples of how you can plan effectively using the ELGs: (Allen, Potter, Sharpe, & Turvey, 2012, p. 66; Linfield & Maltas, 2010)

In terms of Communication and Language, your planning may involve the incorporation of a number of activities that encourage children to write using their phonic knowledge and to recognise words such as –

• Produce posters for an ICT based product; • Write thank you letters who have come in to talk about taking digital photos; • Write forecasts in a role play weather station; • Compose their own sentences on keyboards; • Searching for fiction; • Making and using talking books; • Write messages, label pictures with their name and otherwise engage with the communicative aspects of ICT; • Experience the notion that computers and IWBs can communicate words and pictures from books; • Communicate with friends, relatives and peers in other settings nearby and very far away if possible.

In terms of Physical Development, your planning may involve the incorporation of a number of activities such as –

• Making a dance sequence for a dance mat; • Being timed with a digital timer when playing with a ball or beanbags – this helps them develop their coordination; • Making characters from a malleable materials for

a DVD; • Using ICT equipment such as the mouse to develop their fine motor skills; • Use of concept and larger keyboards for children who difficulties with their fine motor skills. Touch screens can also be used.

In terms of Personal, Social and Emotional development, your planning may involve the incorporation of activities such as –

• Discussing computer games and why people use the Internet to shop; • Characters in talking books; • Learning how to share the ICT equipment and take turns to allow children to establish constructive relationships with each other and with other adults; • Using the computer to encourage collaboration between children, and between adults and children in problem-solving (even at the basic level of switching on, selecting an item from a menu, clicking on a name).

Using ICT to explore worlds beyond the Early Years.

Using the computer as a tool to encourage collaboration between children who are experiencing difficulties and others in the Early Years setting (using alternative access devices alongside mice and keyboards).

While these three are the prime areas, specific areas include:

• Literacy; • Numeracy; • Expressive arts and design and; • Understanding the world.

Many activities you can use for Literacy can be found in the Communication and Language area. In Numeracy or Mathematics, children can participate in activities such as:

• Plan to use software which allows children to experience situations of counting and sharing and identifying numbers, e.g. in counting items for a picnic. • Use software which relates a counting song or nursery rhyme known to the children to reinforce