Defining professional digital competence of early childhood teachers working with mathematics

Although there are often calls for teachers to gain professional digital competency so they can provide appropriate experiences to the coming generations, there have been few insights about what knowledge and skills are needed by early childhood teachers, especially when engaging children with mathematics. In this article, the six areas of professional digital competency, outlined in the European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators, are used to frame a discussion about the skills and knowledge that teachers, working in early childhood centres, need for working in early childhood centres. Our focus is on teachers working with a social policy pedagogical approach, which is based on children’s own interests and play, as is the case in Norway. Using research articles as a basis, suggestions are offered about how to redefine the six areas for early childhood teachers. These suggestions are predominantly aimed at teacher educators who design courses to introduce preservice and inservice teachers to integrate digital technologies into their work with mathematics for young children. Suggestions are also made about the kind of research which is needed that could contribute valuable information to future discussions and support the further development of teacher education courses.