Abstract:
The use of technology in preschool teaching practices plays a key role in making
the learning process easier and more effective. It is significant to use technology in
the preschool period by the teachers when the learning capacity is high. This study
aims to investigate the use of information and communication technologies (ICT)
by teachers in the preschool period with an explanatory sequential design, which is
one of the mixed research methods. There were 327 participants in the quantitative
stage, and 35 participants in the qualitative stage of the research. Research data were
collected in the quantitative part of the study with the “ICT Use in Early Childhood
Education Scale”, and in the qualitative part, an interview form consisting of four
research questions was used. As a result of the research, it was revealed that teachers’
ICT use was high. According to the variable of teachers’ participation in in-service
training, it was determined that the use of ICT created a significant difference
in favor of the teachers participating in the training. To support the basic ICT skills,
it was determined that participants benefited from enabling ICT use by children,
using ICT in the classroom, giving ICT training to children, online applications and
coding studies. In order for the children to develop positive attitudes towards ICT,
it was revealed that the participants made use of doing activities, giving information,
attracting attention and being a role model. It was revealed that the participants
used ICT in the teaching process in preparing activities, presenting visual materials,
watching videos and online applications. For teachers to support individual learning
needs, it was found that they planned individual activities, enabled individual ICT
use and performed online sharing.