Early childhood teachers’ computer attitudes, knowledge, and practices

Two hundred‐fifty kindergarten and preschool teachers in public and private schools in a five county area of Illinois, including the city of Chicago, were surveyed to identify teachers’ computer attitudes, knowledge and practices. The results showed that over ninety percent of the teachers had positive or very positive personal and professional attitudes towards using the computer. Fifty‐one percent of the teachers were using the computer in their classroom. Of that fifty‐one percent, twenty percent said that their children also used the computer in a lab in the school, while thirty one percent only had the computer in their classroom. An additional twenty percent did not have a computer in the classroom, but did have a computer lab available. Twenty‐nine percent did not have a computer in the lab or in the classroom. Thirty six percent of the teachers had a computer at home with the most common brand being some type of Apple computer. Seven percent of the teachers had no training, knowledge or experience on the computer. Sixty‐seven percent had some training, knowledge and experience with a computer and twenty six percent had training and knowledge and used the computer frequently. The majority of teachers had learned to use a computer through workshops, university classes or on their own. Very few teachers had received instruction at school from a school computer instructor.