Online Teacher Training: The Early Childhood Technology Integrated Instructional System – Phase 31

Legislation, research, and practice support access to technology by young children with disabilities. Yet barriers to technology use—lack of training, inadequate funding, failure to acknowledge technology as a relevant issue, or disbelief that technology can positively impact young children with disabilities—often prevail among many disciplines important to early childhood teams (Barnett, 2001; Healy, 1998; Hutinger, Hall, Johanson, Robinson, Stoneburner, & Wisslead, 1994; Pressman, 1999). The purpose of this study is to present the findings from a project utilizing online workshops to assist teachers ’ use of technology with children with special needs. A total of nine online workshops were made available to in-service and pre-service teachers and evaluated with the use of mixed methods. Children and Technologies Technologies serve a variety of purposes and functions as educational tools for young children, depending upon the versatility of a particular application. In the best of scenarios, technology not only provides a way for children to do things differently (i.e., communicate, draw, write), but also enables them to do different things (e.g., make and use individualized multimedia software or establish a web site) (Bell, Clark, & Johanson, 1998; Hutinger & Clark