Part 3: Final Reflection

My learning has improved in the ways I respond to children in my centres interests and how I can expand their interests. I have learnt from the other teachers in my centre and how they expand the interests of the children including discussing with the children what they want to do, researching different ways to expand the interests, talking to parents about the interests at home and talking to other teachers about previous activities they may have done. I have learnt from the feedback I have received was that when I use the iPad again with the children I with the children I will download a different rang of puzzle games for the children to choose from rather than picking one app for them to use. This way they can choose their own skill level and type of puzzle they want to play. The reason I picked the app for the child to use was so that they could expand their interest on sorting. I would also like to do my own sorting game by sorting different colour items into different containers.

Questioning is very important to me and I often ask the children questions when I am doing an activity with the children. When I am with the children doing an activity I will often ask the children question starting with either what, who, when, why, and how. This way I can understand what they are doing and often they can understand what they are doing as well.

I like that my centre has access to iPads but at the same time I don’t like them. They are a great way for the older children to do their own research on their interests. But I think that iPads can become used more as babysitters rather than the children actually playing with toys or using their imagination. I enjoy using the iPad when I’m doing music and movement because it means if we don’t have a song on our iPad I can look it up on YouTube.

Overall I am not a big fan of the over use of technology in centres especially iPads, tablets and computers. I think they have their time and place within early childhood. Researchers believe that using iPads and smartphones can be detrimental to their social-development (Walters, 2015). Lots of people use iPads to help calm their children so by doing this it prevents children from being able to self-regulate their own feelings and emotions (Walters, 2015). I try to use the iPad in a way that multiple children are able to interact with it as well as with each other. I often to use it to play YouTube videos and music to dance with. Overexposure to iPad games can prevent children from being able to build blocks, and make puzzles due to being use to the 2D nature of an iPad (Knapton, 2015). I think cracking down on using iPads to calm down children is important. We need to use iPads as a way to extend the children’s learning rather than being the only way they learn.