Superheroes and ICT

A couple of weeks ago, the superhero play at kindy has moved to an interesting direction. The children have gone beyond capes and masks. It's no longer about dressing up and running around. As the kindy has a culture of using the medium of art as the tool of exploration, we put out pens and paint, and also pictures and magazines of superheroes for children to represent their understanding of the superheroes.

When we looked up pictures of superheroes on the internet, the teachers noted that a few children have a lot of knowledge and interest in the ninjas of Lego's Ninjago. While the teachers are not familiar with this set of Lego toys or characters, so alongside with the children, the teachers have been actively researching on Ninjago on the computer. Through research, the teachers are able to draw the children's attention to the positive attributes of the Lego ninja. Instead of talking about fighting and battle, they discussed about what each character likes to do, what their weapons are and their means of transportation. The children filled each other up with the story plot, and their narrative is sophisticated and full of details. Thanks to Lego!

While we think we know something about the classic superheroes like Batman and Spiderman, we won't do any research about them when planning the learning experiences. Whereas we know nothing about the Lego ninja, so we are keen to read more about them from the internet. In the end, the children's learning is enriched with greater understanding of the lego ninjas. Their drawing is more complex; and the ninja heroes are depicted in action, and sometimes with their plane or motorbike at the background...

We love to see children moved beyond dressing up and chasing each other, and we let them play games on the computer as well. The more experienced children help the less experienced ones use the touch pad to scroll the screen; click and select and so on. A lot of peer tutoring is happening.

How amazing is ICT in supporting teaching and learning! I've been thinking if we did research about Spiderman and Batman, would the children's play be more complex? Recalling a child who used to dress up as a Spiderman and jump, crouch and climb around kindy, if I had used internet to research about Spiderman with the children, they might focus their attention on the languages of body movements and drama, which is a valuable means of communication in the early years.

However, for a much younger age group - infants, what does technological literacy mean? Check out what Anita of Victoria University, New Zealand has found out.