Fool's Gold? The Role of Computer Technology in Young Children's Learning and Play

Deanne Pérez-Granados

Computer technologies are becoming part of children’s everyday lives. Recently there has been a movement to create technological toys for young children that are interactive, fun, and may provide learning opportunities. Technology may have an important role in children’s learning and development, but the role it will play in their lives is heavily dependent on the ways in which adults introduce and structure technology into children’s everyday experiences. This research study investigates parents’ and teachers’ beliefs and practices regarding the role of new technologies in young children’s development. The goal of this research is to explore the cognitive and social dimensions of parent-child and teacher-child behaviors when playing with different types of computational toys. We hope that this research will be useful for both teachers and parents to prepare young children for successful futures in an increasingly technological world.

About Deanne Pérez-Granados

Dr. Perez-Granados received her doctoral training in Developmental Psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. After serving four years as part of the faculty in the Department of Child Development and Family Studies at Purdue University, she recently joined the faculty in the Psychological Studies in Education Program at the Stanford University School of Education. Her primary research endeavors focus on language and conceptual development of young children in family and preschool contexts. Much of her research has centered on identifying patterns of teaching and learning that occur in everyday activities, particularly in the context of parent-child and teacher-child conversations. Recently, she has embarked on a new line of research that explores the role that new technologies, such as computers and computerized toys, will play in young children’s learning and development. Toys embedded with computer technology that simulate both human-like and animal-like characteristics, such as Actimates, Barney, Furby, or Poochi, are often celebrated by advertisers (and even owners) for their ”realness” and described as playmates or companions for children. For her NAE research, she is exploring how parents and preschool teachers introduce and structure technology into children’s everyday experiences that help children fit these new types of objects into their conceptual understandings of the world.