How to engage in possibility thinking in digital play in preschool today?

What if you could change your mindset about the use of digital play in early childhood education toward other possibilities? Children who live in a digital world are already asking the key question ‘what if” when they engage in the use of digital technologies.

This type of thinking is actually a natural progression from children’s traditional play. In fact, it is fundamental to how they learn as they explore different ways of thinking about objects.

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As if Thinking

This type of questioning is momentary and is significant in its practice in the early childhood learning environment. Along with the question, it is also important to act ‘as if’. For young children, this opens up new ways of understanding and engagement in their digital play.

Children need opportunities to:

• Initiate, take on and explore roles;
• Use space and resources in ways that support these;
• Sustain ‘as if’ play over time.

Sustained shared thinking encompasses this way of thinking and it is ideal to use in digital role playing situations. You might ask the open-ended question “What would happen here if I pressed this button?” or “I wonder what would happen if …?” 

Going Digital

‘As if’ and ‘what if’ questions fit right into the use of digital technology in early childhood education. In digital play the journey of ‘what if’ thinking is typically shaped by the particular affordances of the digital technologies involved.

Digital play can offer resources that enable this type of thinking to truly take off! They include the following.

• Playfulness – digital spaces are co-exploratory and young children like to improvise with imagination. In the case studies that follow you will also notice that the children show playfulness through their spontaneous vocalisations and share positive affect as they smile and giggle together.
• Risk-taking – when it comes to digital play, you will see as in the case study that children will engage in immediate touch. This suggests that they are not anxious about starting the task.
• Question posing – while at times children may not phrase their suggestions in the form of a question this does not preclude it from being something else.
• Immersion – digital play naturally brings young children together and most of the time, as you will see in the case study, they will be intent on the digital activity.
• Self-determination – when young children engage in digital play their exploration is purposeful and actions can be swift with attention being focused and real momentum in the engagement.
• Imaginative – imagination inspires new possibilities and creativity.
• Innovation – as in the case study, there are at times large jumps in the possibilities of representation.

Sakr (2020)

Digital play in the early years also extends itself to gaming devices such as Nintendo Wii in which Craft believes the four Ps apply:

• Playful – young children can continue to play long after they credibly go and play at the local playground.
• Plural – connecting with many digital playmates who are experimenting with their own online presence.
• Participate – young children access playmates who are both real and virtual. Digital play spaces are democratic where all ideas welcome.
• Possibility – young children explore possibilities. Translating ‘what is’ to ‘what might be’.

Trusting the ‘as if’ and ‘what if’ – what might be!

There are many benefits of incorporating digital play in early childhood education. The use of digital tools will help develop fine motor skills, enable them to develop their knowledge and understanding of the digital world, problem-solve, and promote creativity in the early childhood learning environment.

They also contribute to personal, social, and emotional development.

Possibility thinking is essential in preschool education and as childhood changes as it allows you to consider how to nurture a high-trust culture that recognises children as active, capable digital producers and consumers, with virtual and actual lives.

As adults and early childhood teachers, it is up to us to enable exciting and relevant digital experiences for young children. And to do that, we need to harness the use of digital technology in play-based learning with our capacity to ask open-ended questions such as “What if..?” and to experiment with acting ‘as if’.

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