Dive Brief:

• The rapid pace of workplace automation has ended the need for many jobs, and difficulty predicting what will constitute a typical job in the coming decades can make it difficult to educate preschoolers — while some gravitate toward an emphasis on coding, other skills may be even more vital, The New York Times reports.
• At a Tufts University summer camp, students were learning conventional and necessary skills, like how to collaborate with peers and work in spite of frustration due to temporary setbacks, and advocates say it is important for young students to gain these types of foundational skills, which machines aren't able to accomplish.
• Supporters of this kind of holistic learning assert that since it is impossible to know what kind of programming languages will be utilized in the coming years, it is better for students to learn how to employ "computational thinking" in all forms of learning, requiring them to break problems into pieces with a plan in place to solve them, encountering challenges and victories along the way.

Dive Insight:

While early childhood educators should be wary of committing too much classroom time and resources to activities like coding and programming, there are still a wide array of opportunities available for preschool educators to use new tech to teach essential and conventional lessons for young learners. Artificial intelligence tech, for example, is being used by some European Union preschools to help fledging students learn language skills, and the research does indicate that students who are introduced to this kind of tech are more likely to pursue study in a STEM discipline in their postsecondary education. These types of tech are only likely to become more affordable and accessible in the future.

As cities and states continue to expand their universal early childhood education services, schools will face similar tech equity gaps seen in the later K-12 grades, but municipalities have opportunities to ensure equity is scaled alongside expansion. The growing number of ed tech companies and funding for those businesses has continued to steadily grow in recent years, as has the opportunity for private contractors when it comes to supplying, installing and training users in innovative tools. The number of options available offer education officials more opportunity than ever to ensure that the tech inequities that continue to trouble schools and districts need not be overt and disruptive as early childhood tech becomes more accessible.