DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES IN A REAL KINDERGARTEN PROGRAM

Abstract

Digital technology is a comprehensive term that includes digital devices such as computers, mobile phones, tablets, etc., as well as activities that arise from using digital devices. Ways of integrating digital technologies into the preschool education program should result from the conceptual starting points of the program. In programs based on a relationship-oriented approach, such as Fundamentals of Preschool Education Program "Years of Rise", learning is understood as the coconstruction of knowledge with peers and adults in situations that have personal meaning and significance for a child (Fundamentals of the Program, 2018) which implies that digital technologies in such programs cannot be used as a means of teaching or as a substitute for a preschool teacher, but in their integration the following principles should be respected: the use of digital technologies is not isolated, it is not a special area of work within the program or an independent activity but its use is already meaningfully integrated into what children and a preschool teacher are doing, what they are playing and researching; technologies are used as tools for accessing information, solving problems, creative ways of expressing one's own experience and knowledge, documenting one's activities and communication; the use of digital technologies is a social activity of joint participation and exchange; digital technologies are flexibly and meaningfully arranged and moved within the whole space or within individual spatial wholes (Pavlović, Breneselović, 2021). The aim of the research is to see the harmonization of the use of digital technologies in the development of a real program in the kindergarten using the concept of Basics of the Program "Years of Rise". Using the method of qualitative content analysis, twelve stories on different topics, the project of educators employed in the kindergarten "Pčelica" from Sremska Mitrovica, were analyzed. The research findings were discussed from the standpoint of the above principles. It is crucial for practitioners to have a system that supports and enables their permanent professional development in the field of meaningful use of digital technologies in a real program, in accordance with the concept of Basics of the Program "Years of Rise".