Originally Published October 2024 – Updated October 2026
When parents hear about technology in early childhood education, it’s easy to picture children sitting in front of tablets or watching videos. But technology can play a much broader role in a preschool classroom.
Your kiddo might use technology at preschool by taking a picture of something interesting they discovered outside, helping create a digital story, working with classmates on an interactive activity, or programming a simple toy to follow a path across the floor.
Used intentionally, early childhood education technology gives children another way to explore, create, communicate, document what they’re learning, and solve problems. The important question isn’t whether a classroom uses technology. It’s what children are doing with it.
What Is Technology in Early Childhood Education?
Examples of early childhood education technology include digital, electronic, interactive, and assistive tools that educators can use to support learning. You may see familiar devices like tablets and interactive whiteboards, but technology in preschool goes beyond screens.
Common early childhood education technology includes:
- Tablets and educational apps
- Interactive whiteboards and smartboards
- Digital cameras and video
- Digital storytelling tools
- Programmable toys and simple robotics
- Digital portfolios and documentation tools
- Family communication technology
The technology itself doesn’t make an activity educational. What matters is how we incorporate the tool into a larger learning experience.
How Technology Supports Early Learning
We often encourage families to look beyond what equipment a classroom has and focus on what children are invited to do with it.
Watching something on a screen and using technology to investigate a question, create something new, or work through a problem are very different experiences.
NAEYC recommends that technology in early learning be active, hands-on, engaging, and used as one of many options available to children. Technology should expand learning opportunities rather than replace real, hands-on experiences.
Ed-Tech Encourages Exploration and Problem-Solving
Ed-tech for early childhood education can help children continue exploring something that has already captured their curiosity.
Imagine a class discovering an interesting insect outside. Children could photograph it, bring the image back into the classroom, look more closely at what they found, and talk with their teacher about their observations.
The camera hasn’t replaced exploring outside. It has given the children another way to investigate their discovery.
Preschool Technology Gives Children New Ways to Create
Crayons, paint, blocks, music, movement, and dramatic play all give young children opportunities to express their ideas. Digital tools can provide another option within the curriculum.
Children might draw a picture digitally, narrate a story, combine photographs into a book, or record themselves explaining something they’ve created.
Digital storytelling, recorded narration, photography, and digital books can support creativity and learning among preschoolers and kindergartners.
It Helps Teachers Document Learning
Children create a lot during a preschool day. Technology gives teachers and children ways to capture some of those experiences before the block tower comes down or the science experiment gets cleaned up.
Photos, audio, and video can document projects, artwork, classroom activities, and children’s explanations of what they’ve done.
Revisiting those moments can also create another learning opportunity. Instead of simply seeing a finished project, kids can talk about how they made it, what happened along the way, and what they might try differently next time.
Early Childhood Technology Supports Collaboration
Some of the most useful classroom technology isn’t designed for a child to use on their own.
An interactive whiteboard might become part of a group matching activity. Children could create a digital story together or work with classmates to solve a problem using a programmable toy.
When technology encourages children to talk, take turns, share ideas, and solve problems together, the activity becomes about much more than the device.
5 Technology Tools Used in Preschool Classrooms
The technology used in one preschool can look very different from another. These are a few examples of tools that teachers may incorporate into their classroom.
1. Tablets and Educational Apps
Tablets can provide access to interactive stories, drawing tools, puzzles, photography, and other educational activities.
But an app isn’t valuable simply because it carries an “educational” label.
A useful question for teachers and parents is: What is the child being asked to do?
Preschool tech that invites a child to make choices, create, investigate, communicate, or work through a challenge offers a very different experience from an app built primarily around passive viewing or repetitive tapping.
2. Interactive Whiteboards and Smartboards
Interactive whiteboards give teachers and children a large shared space for digital classroom activities.
A teacher might use one for a matching game, interactive story, counting exercise, drawing activity, or visual demonstration. Children can come to the board, contribute to an activity, and discuss what they’re doing with their classmates.
That shared experience is one reason interactive technology can work well in a preschool classroom. The screen doesn’t have to isolate children from one another. It can become another place for them to work together as a group.
3. Digital Cameras and Video
Digital cameras are simple tools with plenty of possibilities.
Children can photograph a structure they built, document changes in a classroom plant, capture discoveries during outdoor exploration, or record parts of a project.
And video adds another dimension. A child might explain how they solved a puzzle or tell the story behind something they created.
Teachers can also use photos and videos for documentation, creating a record of classroom experiences that children and their families can revisit.
4. Digital Storytelling Tools
Children tell stories through pretend play, drawings, movement, conversations, and books. Digital storytelling gives them another medium.
Early learners might combine their drawings or photographs with recorded narration to create a simple story. A class could even work together to create a digital book about a shared experience.
The most important part is that it gives preschoolers another way to organize their ideas, use their imagination, and communicate something meaningful to others.
5. Programmable Toys and Simple Robotics
Some preschool classrooms use simple programmable toys to turn technology into a hands-on problem-solving activity.
For example, children might choose a sequence of directions for a small robot, predict where it will go, test their idea, and make changes when it doesn’t end up where they expected.
The goal isn’t to teach preschoolers computer programming. Simple robotics can introduce children to ideas like sequencing and directional thinking while giving them opportunities to experiment with sequencing, direction, prediction, and problem-solving.
How ECE Technology Fits Into The Campus Preschool
At The Campus Preschool, we believe children learn best when they actively participate in discovery. That means technology is only one tool within a much larger learning environment.
Children need opportunities to ask questions, move their bodies, create, build, experiment, collaborate, practice new skills, and experience the excitement of figuring something out for themselves. Technology can support those experiences when there’s a clear reason for using it.
If you’re looking for a preschool in the Fresno or Clovis area, get in touch with us at America’s Kids In Motion to learn more about The Campus Preschool and how we approach learning!
