Developmentally Appropriate Guidelines for Technology in Early Childhood Education
Educators today are often asking an important question: what is DAP in early childhood education and how does it shape our use of technology? Developmentally Appropriate Practice provides a framework for making thoughtful choices, ensuring that digital tools enhance learning without displacing play, relationships, or wellbeing.
When we speak about technology in early childhood education, it is essential to move beyond screen time debates. The focus must be on balance, intentionality, and recognising that digital contexts are part of children’s everyday lives. Used well, technology can strengthen learning and support growth across many areas of development.
The Four Principles of DAP in Early Childhood Education
The guiding principles for use of technology with early learners fall into four areas:
-
Relationships – Digital tools should foster strong bonds between children, peers, families, and educators. Activities such as co-viewing media or collaborative storytelling allow children to use technology in ways that enhance human connection.
-
Health and Wellbeing – Technology should support rather than undermine physical activity, sleep, and emotional regulation. This includes ensuring children experience movement-rich play alongside digital exploration.
-
Citizenship – Even young children begin to encounter questions of privacy, digital rights, and online safety. Educators can introduce these ideas early, supporting respectful and ethical participation in digital spaces.
-
Play and Pedagogy – Digital play is valuable when it remains exploratory and creative. Educators have a responsibility to decide when and how to include technology, ensuring that it is always in children’s best interests.
These principles represent what DAP in ECE looks like when applied to digital contexts: a balance of innovation and child-centered practice.
How the Membership Brings These Guidelines to Life
Inside the ICT in Education Teacher Academy, these principles are not abstract—they are woven into lesson plans, reflection tools, and professional learning resources. Members see how to embed DAP in early childhood education directly in their planning and practice.
| Principle | How It Lives in the Membership | Example Lesson Plans |
| Relationships | Observation guides and planning templates show how to use digital tools for shared experiences between children and families. | Learning About Computers – exploring devices together. Outdoor Digital Storytelling – collaborative narratives using nature sounds. |
| Health & Wellbeing | Reflection prompts support teachers in balancing movement and screen use, helping children regulate their engagement with digital tools. | QR Code Nature Hunt – combining technology with physical activity. Digital Nature Walk – outdoor exploration using photography. |
| Citizenship | Safe and ethical ICT modules support educators in teaching digital rights and privacy to young learners. | Sorting Animals – safely accessing and using online images. |
| Play & Pedagogy | Lesson plans model a balance of playful digital exploration with traditional activities, supported by critical reflection. | Bee-Bot School Bus – imaginative coding play. Abstract Art with Bee-Bot – creative digital expression. |
Why It Matters
DAP in early childhood education ensures that every child experiences technology as part of a balanced, meaningful learning journey. These guidelines protect play, relationships, and wellbeing while embracing the opportunities of the digital age.
The membership gives you the tools to apply these principles with confidence—whether that means using the workbook to plan, reflecting with peers in the community, or drawing inspiration from ready-to-use lesson plans.
👉 If you want to align your practice with developmentally appropriate guidelines while gaining real classroom strategies, the ICT in Education Teacher Academy is your next step.
8 DATEC Principles to Follow Toay
The appropriate use of technology in early childhood education and care centres is guided by principles outlined in the DATEC project which was funded by the European Commission CONNECT programme in 2000/2001.
In the guiding principles for use of technology with early learners literature, early childhood teachers need to adhere to DAP principles accordingly. Here are the best DAP guidelines that you need to adhere to today.
Should be educational – the applications you choose should be educational in nature. Great thought must be given to selecting technology that supports and enhances children’s learning.
It should encourage collaboration – ask the right questions such as How is the technology provided? Are children able to combine materials etc?
The technology should support effective integration in the curriculum and play – children should learn to use ICT as tools in their learning and in their play to connect them to the real world.
Children in control of technology – to develop full ICT capability, they need to be given opportunities to be challenged intellectually with content-free software like word processors.
All applications should be transparent and intuitive – children should have no problem managing appropriate technology. Functions should be clearly defined and intuitive.
Applications should not contain stereotyping and violence – you cannot justify use of these applications in the learning environment.
Support the development of awareness of health and safety issues – you need conduct a health and safety audit of all ICT tools and equipment.
Support the involvement of parents – when parents, teachers and children collaborate towards the same goal it leads to improved attainment levels in ICT capability and ICT literacy as well as in other learning areas like literacy and numeracy.
These principles of DAP make an excellent base for decision-making, both in choosing technologies in early childhood education and in planning uses of technology.
RELATED: Guiding Principles for use of Technology with Early Learners
Guidelines for digital play based learning
In considering appropriate uses of digital technology in early childhood education in relation to play based learning, it is important that you consider the following questions from the Developmentally Appropriate Technology in Early Childhood (DATEC) guidelines.
This identifies nine general criteria for determining the appropriateness of the ICT tools to be applied in the early childhood learning setting. It provides you with excellent guidelines for making decisions.
There are in fact, two key identifiers that relate to the integration of digital technologies or ICT and play based learning in early childhood education settings.
ICT Tool should support integration
When you plan for integration, you ensure that ICT is viewed as a tool to support and enhance teaching and learning.
It can be used in an imaginative way to deliver the curriculum and the quality of what is taught and learned is further developed and the effectiveness of the learning process is increased.
So what are the questions that you need to consider?
Is digital technology fully embedded?
- Are children using technological tools for meaningful and authentic purposes? For example, can they use a computer to design and print wrapping paper?
- Can they take photographs to share with their friends and families?
- Do children have full access to the digital technology around them sot that they can select tools in their spontaneous play?
Digital technology applications should be integrated as far as possible with other established early childhood learning activities which make the curriculum relevant to the children.
The ICT Tool should support Play
In the early childhood learning environment, learning through play is one of the most important ways for young children to learn and develop.
It’s an activity where young children can explore, imagine, and make decisions and this changes over the course of childhood from infancy to adolescence.
The DATEC principle states that:
“Play and imitation are primary contexts for representational and symbolic behaviour, and role-play is therefore central to the processes of learning in the early years. Artefacts, such as toys and other ‘manipulables’ (functioning or pretend), are important because they provide symbols for the children to play with. Computer applications also provide a means by which children may engage and interact with a much wider range of virtual’ artefacts and environments than would otherwise be possible.”
The Office for Use of Educational Technology has also developed ‘Guiding Principles for use of Technology with Early Learners’.
“Developmentally appropriate use of technology can help young children grow and learn, especially when families and early educators play an active role. Early learners can use technology to explore new worlds, make-believe, and actively engage in fun and challenging activities. They can learn about technology and technology tools and use them to play, solve problems, and role play.”
DAP Practices for Digital Play
Here is a list of developmentally appropriate examples that you may want to apply today.
For use of desktops computers and laptops –
- Make the computer available for children to work alone or in pairs to solve problems and establish priorities or make decisions. Save the individual work of children so that you can keep track of which child uses logic and reasoning activities at the computer. This way you can check to make sure everyone has had a chance to accomplish those objectives.
- Think of the computer as a tool to support curiosity and creativity throughout the classroom. Children should know when they are exploring, playing, or making things the answers to many questions can be found with an Internet search on the computer. You can also use the computer as a place to record notes, searches, and pictures.
- You can use the computer to show children pictures of spiders and count the legs. Programs that come with the computer such as Excel can be used to calculate numbers and explore math concepts.
- The computer can also be used to record observations of science explorations. Upload photos were taken with the digital camera and use drawing programs that allow children to draw what they see with the mouse or touch screen.
- Download software so children can play and record their own music on the keyboard. Even research with children different ways to make play dough.
- Use the keyboard to develop computer literacy as children find the letters and characters. This, in turn, contributes to literacy in general.
- Explore the home countries of the children in your class or research different countries and cultures.
Here is some developmentally appropriate guidance for using computer software and apps.
- Look for activities that promote true problem-solving skills.
- Provide activities that require multiple steps before feedback is provided or that allow a variety of explorations driven by the child’s interests. You should encourage their curiosity at all times.
- Look for added features that engage children, provide variety and have the ability to increase the level of challenge as children progress.
- Look for software that develop scientific thinking such as observing, describing, recording, watching for change, guessing and testing and comparing results. These can all be practice with programs such as word processors.
- Provide software for recording or playing music.
- Think of computer programs as one of the many expression tools you provide for children and ensure that they allow children to use the computer to create their artistic pieces.
- Search for software or programs that promote speaking, listening, reading and writing.
- Search for software to create a cast of characters for an imaginary city, or you might go online to explore what different people do in their jobs.
When should children start to engage in digital play?
There are a number of factors that you need to consider in relation when determining if a young child can interact with digital technology in early childhood education. According to sources, they are to do with the development of the physical, cognitive, linguistic and social and emotional competencies.
The features of various digital technologies also influence how young children can interact with them.
Some important facts that you need to remember include:
- Infants cannot engage in meaningful ways with screens as they are not able to learn well from two-dimensional media or transfer what they see to real life.
- Research has shown evidence that infants and toddlers can’t use information communicated to them through symbolic media such as images, models and video.
- It is also important to remember that there are also evidence findings that suggests there are negative effects of screen viewing for cognitive development.
As young children get older, for example at around 2 and a half, their developmental needs change and it is important that they develop their fine motor skills that can be used for the precise movements involved in using a mouse or track pad. Even scrolling through pages, pressing buttons or remote controls and phones can aid in the development of fine motor skills. Later, both hands coordination is needed to operate game consoles.
In relation to cognitive, socio-emotional and physical development this varies for each individual child and for some young children, additional support is needed. The key points to consider here is that while we may dub young children as ‘digital natives’, not all children are drawn to using digital technology nor will they understand how to interact with a digital device without additional help. And this may be due to the poor design of the digital device or app, or it can be as a result of individual preferences and differences in skill development.
Why DAP Guidelines Matter for Technology in Early Childhood Education
When educators apply DAP guidelines, technology becomes a meaningful part of early learning rather than a distraction. The guiding principles for use of technology with early learners—relationships, health and wellbeing, citizenship, and play—remind us that digital tools must serve children’s development first. Inside the ICT in Education Teacher Academy, these principles are embedded into every resource, from lesson plans to workbook reflection prompts, helping educators translate theory into practice with confidence.
As a member, you don’t just learn about DAP—you live it in your classroom. The membership supports you to:
-
Plan with clarity using the Lesson Planning Template.
-
Observe and record learning through the Observation Guide.
-
Access done-for-you lesson plans that model balance and creativity.
-
Gain peer support to adapt activities for diverse learners.
-
Grow professionally along the Success Path with safe and ethical ICT use.
Are you ready to apply DAP with confidence and see how technology can truly support young children’s learning? 👉 Join the ICT in Education Teacher Academy today and take your next step toward professional transformation.