Özlem Yurt

Early childhood teachers??? thoughts and practices about the use of computers in early childhood education

Abstract This study was conducted to determine the thoughts and practices of early childhood teachers about the use of computers in early childhood education. The study has been carried out with 100 early childhood teachers who attended to a seminar about the early childhood education in Eskisehir and Afyon. To collect data, a “General Information Form” was used to determine the general characteristics of the teachers and their classroom, and a “Thoughts and Practices about the Use of Computers Questionnaire” was developed by the researchers and used in this study. The questionnaire includes a total of 11 questions related to the experiences, the purposes and the frequency of computer use; classroom assessments for activities with computer, thoughts about the status of children participate in activities and achieve goals of activities with computer. The results of the study show that the majority of the teachers acquire their information and skills of computer all by their experiences and state that computer use is appropriate in early childhood education. It is also stated that a major part of the teachers use the computer to support the activities in daily plans and include the computer 1–2 times at a week in their curriculum. Moreover, it is indicated that the teachers use the computer mostly in their music activities and intend to support children’s cognitive development by activities with computer. In addition, suggestions were made regarding the correct and effective use of computers in education programs.

The use of interactive CD-ROM in early childhood education: teachers' thoughts and practices

The purpose of the research is to determine the opinions of the early childhood teachers working in Denizli about the use of interactive CD-ROMs in the education programs. The research has been conducted with the qualitative research methods. In the research, semi-structured interview has been used as a way of gathering data, which is one of the interview ways. The research has been conducted with five early childhood teachers teaching different age groups of children. According to the findings gathered in the research, it has been found that the teachers use the interactive CD-ROMs in the classrooms very rarely because of the lack of the computer equipments in the classrooms. Moreover, it has been also found that they aim at children’s psychomotor and cognitive development with the use of the interactive CD-ROMs. Among the other findings in the research, it has been found that the teachers recommend the virtual and audio elements of the interactive CD-ROMs to be prepared more elaborately and carefully. Furthermore, It has been found striking that the recommendations of the preparation of interactive CDROMs on the topics supporting the development of sociality and the abstract topics that the adults have difficulty in understanding. At the end of the research, considering the findings gathered, the suggestions have been made for the educationists and the teachers.

An investigation of playfulness of pre-school children in Turkey

ABSTRACT The first aim of this study is to examine the validity and reliability of the Children’s Playfulness Scale (CPS), which was developed to determine pre-school children’sdisposition towards play. The second aim is to test the effects of some variables on playfulness and whether such variables affect playfulness levels of children. About 196 children participated in the research group for testing the validity and reliability of the scale, and 600 children were involved in a comparative analysis. Results of the analysis showed that the ‘CPS’ was a valid and reliable scale. The interaction effect of related variables was not found to be significant. In addition, gender affected the social spontaneity dimension, and the number of siblings affected manifest joy and sense of humour sub-dimensions. Findings suggested that birth spacing between siblings, gender of siblings, and gender roles could be involved as variables in the future research.