Early Childhood Teacher
About Connect Early Childhood
Connect Early Childhood is a DEECD (Department of Education and Early Childhood Development) that links to a range of websites appropriate to an Early Childhood audience. It is a public site accessible to all users.
By clicking on the images, children can find websites to help them read, learn, think, play and create online.
The site is designed to be used by younger children with adult supervision and guidance. The environment is not ‘closed’, therefore if a child continues to click to other sites they are ‘outside’ the Connect environment. For extra protection you may wish to consider filtered internet access.
Explore all sites before using them with children and where possible, provide a purpose for working online.
The Early Childhood site is a new addition to the Victorian Education Channel / Connect. In the past,, teachers have been the main contributors of websites to our pages. We encourage you to email sites you would like to see on this page.
Any feedback is welcome, this space is intended to evolve to best meet the needs of Early Childhood Professionals who incorporate online learning and play in their programs.
As the number of appropriate sites grows we may introduce a simple search function to these pages.
See About eSafety.
Using the internet
As with all activities, set clear expectations for working on computers and the internet. This may include:
- Amount of time spent on the computer
- Sites children can use
- How to use the sites
- How to share the computer with another user
- What to do if inappropriate content is accidentally accessed (children should know how to immediately click off the site)
ICT in Early Childhood
Connect aims to link to engaging sites which encourage learning, interactivity, thinking, play and creativity.
We have included a range of research papers here which you may wish to refer to as you make choices about online learning and ICT use in Early Childhood.
- Infusing ICT Use within the Early Years of Elementary Education, Melbourne University, Victoria
- ICT in the Early Years, South Australia
- ICT in Pre-School: A 'Benign Addition'? Scotland
- Come Back in Two Years, Scotland - follows on from previous document
- Connected to the Future: A report on children’s Internet use from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, US
- Technology in Early Childhood Education, finding the balance, Northwest Educational Laboratory, US
- Television, Digital Media and Children's Learning (PDF - 99Kb): Discussion paper by Dr Don Edgar and Dr Patricia Edgar. This paper was commissioned by the VCAA to promote discussion about the important issue of children’s learning and development through electronic media and new technologies. The statements and opinions in this paper are those of the authors, Dr Don Edgar and Dr Patricia Edgar and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority and /or the Victorian Government.