In my program, I do use very little technology. I personally feel parents use way to much technology as ‘babysitters’ and I try very hard to make sure children learn they can do things through life “the old fashioned way”. I do not have any toys that make music but I do have musical instruments. I also witness many infants and children making their own “noise” with anything they find around my home. We do not watch television because I feel when a child “pretends”, he/she is using their own imagination instead of watching what someone else imagined. Plus, I can always tell who watches alot of tv at home because when they do pretend it is “scripted” to what they have seen or what they fell that character would do. Again, their own imagination is lost.
There are a few times technology actually is used in my centers. One, if we are learning about metamorphosis, I love watching a childs reaction to actually seeing the changes take place. Yes, you can see it in a book, but a book does not give you the actual movements that help a child realize this is actually taking place! There are other times, like weather studies, where I will also incorporate different short videos. Another use of technology is my own phone. I use this only as a videorecorder if we are preparing a song for parents or also as a camera to grab some of the wonderful moments we want to show our parents.