When designing solutions for early learning, part of the process is clearly identifying a problem that impacts the wellbeing of young children that is both well-researched and in need of innovative solutions. However, with such a vast and complex field, identifying an issue to focus on can be difficult. The questions adults ask children have a…

In 2014, over 30 classroom teachers and administrators from one district joined higher education faculty and researchers from an educational non-profit organization to begin a three-year collaborative project. They wanted to find ways to leverage the use of one-to-one mobile technology (tablets) in kindergarten-2nd-grade mathematics classrooms to…

While the author can see many ways that artificial intelligence can be used as an adult, a professional, and a business owner, she also realized what it was going to do for children who are learning their basic skills, such as how to write, how to work with numbers, how to think for themselves, and how to make considered choices. What would this…

Young children are growing up in a digital age that is constantly evolving. They are experiencing new and emerging technologies, such as mobile devices, virtual reality, smart toys, voice-activated assistants, and social robots. This article focuses on exploring what social robots are and how they could disrupt and transform early childhood…

Given his role as Director of Technology, it may come as a surprise that Devon Jacobs is a staunch supporter of a no phones/limited technology approach for young students. In fact, when applying for his position at North Country School/Camp Treetops, he was drawn to the school's commitment to a reduced screen time, reduced media environment for…

In the wake of all that educators are navigating these days, they've proven to be not only resilient, but also innovative. They continue intentionally finding new and exciting ways to create powerful learning opportunities for all students. Reinvent the Classroom, an initiative by Digital Promise, HP, Microsoft, and Intel, supports, celebrates,…

As schools collaborate with other educational and cultural institutions, students, families, and teachers benefit from expanded learning experiences. In 2020, digital technology learning was added to the New Zealand school curriculum so that every student, beginning at five years of age, would develop an understanding of computational thinking and…

The author's classroom today is nothing like what she remem­bers from her own school years. Now a teacher herself, she sees these opposites as opportunities. The Future Classroom is the author's attempt to disrupt the stagnant nature of learning, and it is working. Pre-pandemic, the author had been searching for a frontier space--somewhere she…

As they develop, children become interested in and use increasingly diverse apps on devices such as smartphones. For more than a decade, pediatricians, developmental psychologists, and computer scientists like us have been studying children's ability to use smartphone apps and the positive and negative effects of doing so. In this article, the…

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) states that building bridges between home and school benefits students' development. With online teaching, this translates into informal conversations before class starts or at the end of class as a teacher waits for a virtual classroom to fill up or empty out. Much of teaching…

From birth to preschool years, before the young children become conventional readers and writers, children are involved in a developmental process known as "emergent literacy," a concept that was coined by Marie Clay (a New Zealand scholar) in 1966. During this stage, children engage naturally in unconventional literacy behaviors such as…

The Breateau Foundation delivers a range of programmes to support disadvantaged children. As an education provider in developing countries, the Breteau Foundation witnesses firsthand the disruptions, challenges, and barriers that negatively affect access to education, which include poverty, lack of infrastructure, trafficking, child slavery, and…

Children like to play with smartphones and other touchscreen-based devices, and suitably developed apps can help in entertaining, nurturing, and educating children. For the last three years, the authors have been studying how children interact with smartphones and other touchscreen-based devices. They assert that knowing the capabilities of…

Despite incredible advances of humanity, inequality, worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic, remains an unresolved issue at a global level. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), established in 2000 by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, seek to address those inequities through a series of objectives to be reached by the…

In a small rural village in the Cambodian province of Kampong Cham, a group of 7th-grade students huddle around Android tablets, engrossed in an English language lesson. Guided by their teacher, they swipe from one interactive learning module to the next. They are not only building English literacy, but also developing digital skills. As they do…