Computer use in Reggio Emilia preschools

A hot new approach to preschool education is called the Reggio Emilia method, in which children exert control over their learning while teachers guide and document much of what they see, touch and explore.

In a session here at the NAEYC Institute, attendees were shown how Reggio schools use technology. Dee Stegelin of Clemson University and Lenna Young of the TRI-County Technical Institute hosted the session, providing lists of technology that are used, and often necessary, to the Reggio approach. Digital cameras, for example, are essential. And computers, they said, should be in the classroom -- not in laboratories down the hall.

"Computers are used a lot in Reggio schools," Stegelin said. Examples given included the use of KidPix software and word processing systems to give children a way to document and easily distribute stories of what they have seen and heard.