Ep. 95 Consumers vs Creators: Technology Education for Young Children with Dr. Kayla Abshire

In this episode of Reimagine Childhood from the Early Childhood Christian Network, host Monica Healer interviews Dr. Kayla Abshire, director of innovation and learning at San Marcos Academy, about developmentally appropriate technology education for young children. They distinguish passive screen time from intentionally teaching technology as a productivity tool, addressing concerns such as delayed language development, reduced social-emotional skills, sleep disruption, and physical impacts. Dr. Abshire shares practical, mostly hands-on strategies for pre-K, including mouse and keyboard skill-building, letter recognition, unplugged coding with movement-based sequencing games, early robotics with Bee-Bots and coding mice, and scaled-down digital citizenship focused on device care, safe clicking, and kind communication. The conversation also covers parent and teacher pushback, the need for professional development, and the goal of helping children create with technology rather than only consume it.

00:00 Welcome to Reimagine Childhood

00:50 Meet Dr Kayla Abshire

03:02 Screen Time Risks Explained

07:07 Teaching Tech Without Screens

14:12 Unplugged Coding and Robotics

20:46 Digital Citizenship and Parents

28:43 Creators Not Consumers Wrap Up