The Role of Play in the Pedagogy of ICT

Today's children meet a wide range of technology in their everyday lives, and they become competent users of devices such as mobile phones and games machines without any formal instruction. It appears that highly complex ICT processes and techniques can be learned through informal methods which are very much learner directed-unfocussed exploration, creative invention, trial-and-error, cooperation with friends and asking people who are more experienced. Indeed, the children themselves tend to see their activity as play rather than learning. This paper describes a project carried out in a number of informal learning situations. The children involved were relatively disadvantaged economically, and the majority were not very confident in using a PC. Most had access to both a games machine and a mobile phone, however, and rated themselves as very confident with these. The project aimed to find out how they developed competence in using unfamiliar hardware and software, and how much they learned from self-directed study in a loosely structured learning environment. In order to investigate these issues, groups of children were introduced to new software tools and left to 'play' with the software in order to explore the possibilities and discover new features. The children were observed and their questions answered, and the researcher also discussed their experiences with them afterwards. Despite their lack of previous experience with PCs and the particular software used for the project, the children were generally successful in gaining specified competencies with the software. Several children reflected that they were learning in the same way as they had learned to use mobile phones, although there was no evidence for transfer of specific techniques. This indicates that the role of higher order learning skills is important, and evidence emerged that the influence of self-efficacy may be more important in gaining success than previous experience with PC technology. This factor is suggested as the focus for further investigation.