PLAY AND EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGIES: PATHWAYS TO HOLISTIC DEVELOPMENT AND MEANINGFUL LEARNING IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

Abstract

Early Childhood Education constitutes the foundation of children’s holistic development, encompassing cognitive, social, affective, and motor dimensions. In this context, play is understood as a specific language of childhood and a fundamental pedagogical resource for meaningful learning. At the same time, digital technologies have been consolidated as innovative tools in the educational process, broadening possibilities for mediation and interaction. This study aims to analyze the importance of play and the use of educational technologies as resources that foster children’s holistic development and meaningful learning. The research, with a qualitative approach, is based on a bibliographic review that considers both classical authors, such as Piaget, Vygotsky, and Kishimoto, and contemporary scholars who address the subject, as well as official documents of Brazilian education. The relevance of this investigation lies in the need to reflect on pedagogical practices that engage with contemporary social reality, marked by the constant presence of digital technologies, while preserving the centrality of play as a constitutive childhood experience. It is expected that the results will contribute to strengthening pedagogical proposals that critically and innovatively articulate playfulness and technological resources, valuing the teacher’s mediating role and promoting contextualized, creative, and inclusive learning in Early Childhood Education.