Using Technology In The Early Childhood Classroom

Best Practices for using Technology in the Early Childhood Classroom

One of the biggest problems faced with the use of technology in the classroom is that teachers do not know how to integrate it within the classroom. Often this caused by a lack of technology skills. An article by Arzu Arikan (2007) titled Retelling the Story: Official Tales of Technology and Head Start Teachers Technophobia focused on how the insufficient knowledge of technology has resulted in the improper use of it by classroom teachers. This has resulted in frustration among teachers and students and non-meaningful classroom experiences. In the article Arikan explored ways to support teachers learning of technology and how to integrate it in the classroom. The main way to support teachers Arikan found was changing assumptions about using and learning technology and finding innovative ways to introduce to students and incorporate in the classroom.

It focused on using technology to enhance traditional teaching and to weave technology resources into the lessons. The article also has five technology tips on using technology in the classroom and teachers becoming comfortable and knowledgeable about use. The first tip was conducting mini lessons for quick training of new technology introduced to a classroom. The second tip was technology training should be school wide and every staff member should be knowledgeable about technology use. Third tip was to model it during any available opportunity so people are constantly learning how to use it. The fourth tip was setting high school wide technology standards for the teachers as well as the students. The fifth tip was to check for progress and ensure that progress was being made with the use of technology