Intentional Technology Use in Early Childhood Education

Early childhood is a critical developmental period when children's experiences have lasting impacts on long-term outcomes. Thus, an evidence-based understanding of how technology can support early childhood education (ECE) classrooms promises to be disproportionately useful to children's long-term wellbeing. We conducted an observational study at ten child-care centers, complemented by interviews with teachers and directors. Using a Uses and Gratifications (U&G) perspective, we found that the gratifications teachers seek when they incorporate technology into the classroom cluster into six categories, such as encouraging technology literacy, regulating children's behavior, and supporting child autonomy. Using these themes, we contribute a set of design priorities for supporting this population. We also contribute an expansion of the U&G perspective to include: 1) gratifications resisted, to account for the ways in which teachers resist gratifying uses of technology, and 2) differentiation between direct gratifications and indirect gratifications to better describe technology use in collaborative contexts.