CREATIVITY AND EDUCATIONAL FREEWARE CHOSEN BY FUTURE EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATORS

Abstract

This research aims to study the prospects of cultivating creative thinking of pre-school children from the perspective of the use of educational software by potential pedagogues of pre-school children. The survey involved 104 future educators who chose freeware spontaneously in order to utilize it in the pre-school children's learning process. They analyzed, evaluated and prioritized the software in their discretion through an assessment grid developed by the researcher. In this context, the prospects for the cultivation of children's creative thinking in the development of the use of technology by future pedagogues were studied. According to the results, the potentially positive perspective of cultivating creative thinking of children is examined in view of the intention of educators to exploit learning software. It seems that the spontaneous choice of freeware aims to cultivate children's creativity. The pursuit of creative thinking seems to be one of the main criterion for educators' software selection. They, also, estimate positively the software which is designed to practice creativity. Moreover, future educators seem to identify and recognize the added value that new technologies offer in cultivating creative thinking of pre-school children. Article visualizations: