Browsing by Subject "tablettilaite"

Nowadays, children are growing up in a digital and technology-saturated world and as a consequence a child is viewed early on as a capable user of technology. However, learning a new subject cannot ignore the support and teaching that an adult can give, even though a child is faced as competent technology user. This Bachelor's Thesis was intended to describe and highlight the experiences of kindergarten teachers on the use of tablet devices in early childhood education. I wanted to find out how kindergarten teachers make use of tablet devices as a learning tool and how the use of tablets reflects the learning areas set in the new National Core Curriculum for Early Childhood Education and Care. Secondly, I wanted to find out what benefits and challenges tablets have as a learning tool in kindergarten teachers’ experience. My research is a qualitative research. The study material was collected through a questionnaire published in three different Facebook groups. The survey was open to respondents for one month and was answered by 34 kindergarten teachers. The method of analysing the material is data and theorybased content analysis. Based on the results of the study, kindergarten teachers use tablet devices diversely in all the areas of learning of the new National Core Curriculum for Early Childhood Education and Care. The results also show that teachers use tablets in integrating the different areas of learning. Tablets are most used as a tool for documenting, producing different forms of visual art and for developing the child's mathematical and linguistic skills. The challenges kindergarten teachers faced with tablet devices were too few devices in early childhood setting, the technological problems of the devices, the lack of pedagogical content of various applications, the difficulty of maintaining their own know-how, and the lack of training of other educators and their negative attitude towards the use of tablets. On the other hand, kindergarten teachers felt that the benefit of tablets as a learning tool were their mobility, the possibilities for using the device to expand the learning environments and their wide use as documentation tool. In addition, kindergarten teachers felt that a tablet was a useful tool for their own work. The tablet was used as an aid in the design of curriculum-based activities, observation and documentation, as well as a means of communication with parents.