The use of computers in preschools in Chile: Lessons for practitioners and policy designers

This paper presents the results of survey of the availability and use of computers in a preschool sample in Chile, and compares them with similar results of primary and secondary schools. Results show that although preschools have relatively low access to computers and teachers have relatively low ICT competencies, they declare similar ICT related obstacles and impacts compared to their colleagues in secondary schools. Also, results show that preschool students seem to use computers in the classroom more frequently than their peers in primary and secondary schools and that the activities they implement are focused on developing key curriculum related areas implementing tasks that can be associated to the exercising of key competencies and skills. This specialised use of computers in preschools, which is much more focused than the activities with computers reported by teachers in higher levels, could be explained by the relative low variety of educational software available in these preschools, the availability of the computers in the classroom rather than in labs; the special type of teaching and learning activities implemented at this age level and/or due to the relative lack of teachers' ICT competencies. On the one hand, these results highlight the need for further research, and on the other, it constitutes an interesting lesson for policy designer that tend to advocate for considering computers as “multipurpose” technologies that should be used across subjects, levels and teaching strategies. In this case, computers seem to play a very specific and concrete role in preschools classrooms that, eventually, contributes to improve students' outcomes, which highlights the potential of considering the use of computers, software and other technologies to improve specific subject areas at particular levels while designing ICT in education policies for this age group.