A CEREMONY FOR REWARDING CERTIFICATES

FOR GRADUATING COURSE FOR INITIAL COMPUTER SKILLS

OF CHILDREN FROM "CHILDHOOD" KINDERGARTEN WAS HELD

IN “SAVA DOBROPLODNI” REGIONAL LIBRARY

On a special ceremony in the children's department of “Sava Dobroplodni” regional library, certificates for initial computer skills of 12 children from "Childhood" kindergarten were awarded on 11.06.2010. Kindergarten "Childhood" is the only one in Sliven, which is able to offer its students a training course "Preparation for training children in preschool age through the formation of basic computer skills" in academic year 2002/2003 until now. Equipment of Engineering-Pedagogical Faculty at Sofia Technical University has been used. A pedagogical experiment for the application of computer technology in the preparatory group of the kindergarten aiming to support their intellectual readiness for school has been made. Activities were held two times a week lasting 30 minutes on a special program approved by the Faculty Council of the Engineering-Pedagogical Faculty – Sliven which comply with Regulation № 9 / 07.06.1994 for health and hygiene requirements for the use of computers in education. Computer classes develop especially well the skills of children to deal with symbols. The symbol whether shown by the keyboard or searched by the cursor as an icon in the gaming field becomes the magic key that opens children virtual worlds. Touching different keys - letters, numbers or pictures that children select with the mouse, they constantly shift from symbols to pictures and back. The icons on display are images which have symbolic meaning, but they are closer to the picture, containing elements of these picturesque grounds, and these are the reasons they are ideal for child's transition from thinking with images to thinking using symbols. Sounds of computers also have an interesting role in implementing the transition to dealing with symbols. The children at this age can not read, but they can recognize sounds and letters. In this process, computer helps child to realize the connection between sound and letter and number and figure. There is a symbiosis between literacy training and preparation for computer work. The child must feel constantly in communication with computer that it has in front of himself a friend and a helper, not just a source of temptations for a catchy game which are by the way a very bad educators. That is why the appropriate selection and time devoted to computer games should be very carefully planned by the teacher. It is better children have a limited access to computers protected by passwords to access data, websites, games, etc. Once children enter computer world, they become vulnerable to other potential hazards. Parents are the ones who should supervise children in their further development in using the Internet outside school. All of this means we should not limit the preparatory work for school neither in the circle only of traditional activities, nor in single rounds of computer games.

Conducting teaching experiments in the computer halls of the Engineering-pedagogical Faculty - Sliven have an extra emotional impact on children. Their meeting with students and teachers, who with sympathy and unhidden interest treat them, convince them of the importance of their work, gives them confidence and activate their child's fantasy. The image of a child is formed in the environment in which he lives, which he inhabits, by the world of people who meet and communicate, by the objects he uses. Children got information from everything they touch and they gain experience that they convert in their own unique way. So they gradually accumulate sensations, notions, knowledge, emotions. Children create their own world, whose wealth depends on the environment and people they grow and live with. Thus, the introduction of computer with its virtual world that can not only be seen, but also converted, is a phenomenon that can radically change worldview, way of thinking, intellectual and emotional features of the next generations. Teacher of the group is Mrs. Boyka Karachivieva – an engineer, with a doctor’s degree in cipher "Methodology of Teaching Informatics” at the Department of “Preschool and Primary School Pedagogy” of Faculty of Education at Trakya University-Stara Zagora. The Regional library was selected not incidentally as a place for conducting the ceremony of awarding the certificates to the successful graduates. Children of the group are already readers of children's department and visited it often not just to lend books, but also to demonstrate with pleasure their knowledge to work with computer to their coevals.