One of the important research findings of 20th century was the recognition that early childhood and primary education stages play the key role in the development of the personality of children. Similar attention in high quality early childhood education has never occurred before. Another important recent finding points out the extraordinary potential of ICT to enhance the learning processes of children: digital technologies can provide children with new opportunities to attractive and relevant learning, communication, exploration, and development. Digital toys and tools properly integrated in learning and play can empower children by granting them a voice they have never had before. Digital technologies also open new pathways to social interactions and change the learning relationships between children and teachers.
The Policy Brief outlines the values that ICT offers to early childhood learning; gives different perspectives on the process of implementation of ICTs into ECCE practice; lists most frequent safety concerns and presents general criteria for determining the developmental appropriateness of the ICT tools to be applied in ECCE; calls attention to the necessity to support the transformation by simultaneous evaluative research; specifies several risks to the process; and summarizes several recommendati ons for policy and practice. The omnipresent message of the Policy Brief is the understanding that the potential of ICT for ECCE can be productively harnessed only if new technologies are integrated into early childhood learning experience alongside many other ordinary everyday activities, not displacing them.