Abstract:

Digital technologies have created a new environment for education. Especially in the field of Pre-school Education, digital technologies and more specifically video games, is a subject of interest regarding the potential role of computer and video games to support young people’s learning.
The aim of this paper is to explore how can the use of mainstream games both in formal educational contexts as well as outside, can support the learning processes of the children in Pre-School ages.
Young people and children are today amongst the biggest user groups of online and mobile technologies in Europe. To date, the majority of the research on young people’s use of computer games has focused on informal, out- of-school contexts – on what is being learned outside of the school gates. In addition most of the research has been focused on the negative aspects of the video games upon children. As Squire argues “A generation of youth has grown up with games. Yet we know very little about what they are learning when playing these games.” As a consequence, it is crucial to build up better knowledge and understanding of how e-games work and influence children.
Through our proposal we aim to examine e-games literacy as a fundamental competence for enhancing learning and experience of children, and for the safer use of the Internet and other communication technologies from children. As Woolsey (2005) argues the “term literacy has been extended to cover the skills and competencies involved in finding, selecting, analyzing, evaluating and storing information, in its treatment and its use, independently of the codes or techniques involved”. In our approach we consider “e-games literacy” as the ability and opportunity to access and use video games as well as the acquisition of knowledge about their functioning and critical evaluation of their content.
In order to research our topic we will be generative in identifying, describing, and evaluating some of the e-games most used in the pre-school ages environment with the aim both to access the current trends, as well as to propose new ways in order to promote e-games literacy.
In our paper the following hypotheses will be examined
-E-games literacy can be used as primary tools to promote and encourage collaborative interactive learning.
- E-games can significantly contribute towards achieving educational goals
- E-games literacy can become a tool in order to empower and protect children and young people online from harmful content and conduct.
Through our research we aim to present ways that can support children's 'multiliteracy' development. E-games literacy must respond to these new challenges in the Information Society environment, which require new creative and critical approaches and which highlight the need for media appropriation by the educational system

Keywords:

E-games, Literacy, enhancing learcing.