Second Article

Donohue, C. (2003). Technology in Early Childhood Education. Child Care Information Exchange, 17-20. Retrieved February 10, 2017, from https://www.childcareexchange.com/library/5015417.pdf.

Summary of Technology Integration Approach

Donohue starts by highlighting the many ways that technology is commonly used in every day life. He then continues to say, ¨ The question is not if  we should use technology, but how and why we use technology to improve program quality, increase responsiveness to parents, and expand opportunities for professional development.¨ (Donohue, 2003) He also explores the low tech and high tech ways that technology can be used in childhood education from management to teaching. His results compare different early childhood programs. He surveys to find the most common technology tools that are used in early childhood education programs.  

Description of Data Findings

Donohue finds that technology is used in administrative tasks, such as financial management and accounting. In the classroom, 63% of participants used educational programs and 42% used games and entertainment software. The study also found that employees who had been there for 10-20 years used technology the most. This result is surprising because most digital natives would have been there for less than 10 years, but other participants had a higher average of technology use. Also, across childhood programs ranging from church and family child care to public school operated, technology use tended to be about the same. The type of childcare that used technology the most was multi-center for profit, which had embraced technology to attract clientele. The results also found that larger centers were more likely to use all types of technology.  

Reflection on How I Might Implement

The article brings up an interesting point. It mentioned that in order for teachers to use technology effectively, they must have enough time to explore the technology and have enough experience to carefully select the technological tools they wish the students to use. I will use this to continue to educate myself on programs and applications that are available in order to make a good professional selection of which tool to make available for my students. I will also allow myself enough exploration time to understand the application well to be able to assist my students.