That children in the younger years should be given the opportunity to develop digital competence is written into the curriculum for both primary school and pre-school. However, if you search for research with a focus on digital competence in preschool, you will find few studies. It is rather because other concepts are used than because few studies have been done. For example, digital play gives significantly more hits and in this area there are a number of articles focusing on the internet of toys.
The researchers documented the observations by recording sounds, taking photos and sometimes filming children and educators. Pictures and excerpts from conversations between children and educators show how iotoys become a tool that contributes to play and learning and how analog and digital toys are mixed in the activities.
In one example, the reader can follow how an educator introduces an iotoy, here a beebot, by first instructing and explaining to the children what the different buttons on the toy do. Successively, the children take over the activity and help each other. The educator supports them further by asking questions about what the children want the robot to do and how they can get it to do just that.
The educators also plan activities that include digital tools and monitor the children’s development in relation to the curriculum. Educators pre and post-work in terms of planning and follow-up of activities with the children can be seen as a more implicit or unspoken guidance, because in pre and post-work, pedagogues determine the direction of the pedagogical work and how activities are followed up. This implicit guidance is not as easy to discover but, according to plowman and stephen, plays an important role in providing the conditions for children’s development.
The studies show that when iotoys are introduced into the business, the children’s interaction is partly based on the toy’s various functions and partly on the educators’ explanations and demonstrations. Once the children become familiar with the toy, they begin to control the play and how the toy is used in it.
The children then also use other available resources to create experiences, and interact both with each other and other resources that are in their vicinity, such as other toys, pictures or drawings that they have made. Together with the educators, they can develop the game by exchanging ideas, staging these ideas and negotiating among themselves which different roles and activities fit into the game.