2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The "besTech" Technology Practice Framework for Early Childhood Education

Presented at COED: Computing in K-12 / Early Childhood Education

Effective development of children's computational thinking (CT) skills necessitates their exposure to experiences that require the application of CT to build technological solutions. However, the integration of technology into early childhood education is often challenging due to concerns about potential harm to young children. This paper presents a best-practices technology framework constructed from the contributions of early childhood professional organizations and experts. The framework consists of nine elements (Child, Pedagogy, Context, Content, Facilitators, Environment, Evaluation, Tools & Innovations, and Screen Time) that must be understood in the context of technology usage to intentionally extend and complement early childhood learning while minimizing its harm. In addition, the paper proposes a holistic view of technological classification, age groups around technology usage, and input-device literacy.

Authors

Dr. Safia Malallah Kansas State University [biography]

Safia Malallah is a postdoc in the computer science department at Kansas State University working with Vision and Data science projects. She has ten years of experience as a computer analyst and graphic designer. Besides, she's passionate about developing curriculums for teaching coding, data science, AI, and engineering to young children by modeling playground environments. She tries to expand her experience by facilitating and volunteering for many STEM workshops
Joshua Levi Weese Kansas State University [biography]

Dr. Josh Weese is a Teaching Assistant Professor at Kansas State University in the department of Computer Science. Dr. Weese joined K-State as faculty in the Fall of 2017. He has expertise in data science, software engineering, web technologies, computer science education research, and primary and secondary outreach programs. Dr. Weese has been a highly active member in advocating for computer science education in Kansas including PK-12 model standards in 2019 with an implementation guide the following year. Work on CS teacher endorsement standards are also being developed. Dr. Weese has developed, organized and led activities for several outreach programs for K-12 impacting well more than 4,000 students.
Mr. Khaled Nasser Alsalmi The Public Authority for Applied Education and Training [biography]

Computer instructor level 'A' .

Download paper (1.53 MB)

Are you a researcher? Would you like to cite this paper? Visit the ASEE document repository at peer.asee.org for more tools and easy citations.

» Download paper

« View session