Access to Early Education for Future Success

K-12 STEAM education

Pilot or new project, program, or initiative (testing or implementing a new idea)

Technology plays a crucial role in supporting the development of fine motor skills, enhancing coordination and reaction time, and improving social and emotional growth. It also fosters collaboration and relationship-building, promotes cultural awareness, aids in language development, and provides numerous opportunities for information processing. For children with disabilities, technology offers transformative learning opportunities. For instance, communication devices enable children who are unable to speak to interact effectively with others.

The City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks Early Childhood Education Program is looking to integrate technology to enhance learning experiences for young children. We would like to select the most suitable devices, software, and applications that are developmentally age-appropriate and content-appropriate for our students.
With our vision and resources, we can further explore and expand the benefits of technology in early childhood education, making it more accessible and beneficial for all children. It also enables children to play, express themselves and cultivate their skills in a safe, engaging way.

If our Early Childhood Education Program follows the California Department of Education list of guiding principles to use technology, then we will have a successful implementation in our program. The four guidelines are: Technology—when used appropriately—can be a tool for learning.
Technology should be used to increase access to learning opportunities for all children.
Technology may be used to strengthen relationships among parents, families, early educators, and young children.
Technology is more effective for learning when adults and peers interact or co-view with young children.
By creating a viable technology piece to all of RAP’s early education programs, we will expose children to what will be needed for their future educational endeavors.

The impact of the project will be measured by using the application called ABCmouse.com. ABC mouse has a step by step curriculum that is carefully designed to teach 850 lessons in ten levels. As the child completes each lesson, he or she is guided to the next one and is motivated to continue learning by obtaining tickets and using the reward system. This curriculum includes reading, language arts, math, the world around us, art and colors; it has games, books, songs, puzzles, printables, interactive zoo, aquarium, interactive farm, and ability to customize profile avatar. We will be able to see how much progress the children are making by using the ABCmouse.com Progress Tracker. It will display the total number of learning activities completed in each category and be able to see graphs that show progress in the academic level and by curriculum subject.