An examination of teacher attitudes towards technology (internet) integration among kindergarten teachers

The age of digital technology has pushed educators to develop a unique style of pedagogy that meets the many student-learning styles and allows the teacher to balance the entire academic picture. The use of the Internet in the classroom creates the opportunity for immediate conveying of information and quantifiable results of learning. It gives instantaneous reinforcement of the lesson taught by the teacher in order to give the student the contingency to display knowledge and adhere to objectives step-by-step to achieve specific learning outcomes. The teacher can implement and integrate the Internet into their teaching practices in such a way that each student has the space to take an active, rather than passive, approach to the learning. The Internet, as a technology platform or program used for learning, provides students the necessary motivators to know learning expectations up front, the reasons the task must be completed and answer the related questions as to why. The purpose of this study was to examine the attitudes of kindergarten teacher towards integrating the Internet into their classroom. The participants were 36 teachers from two of the charter schools sanctioned by the Volunteer Independent School District (VISD). There were 15 kindergarten teachers from Promised Enhanced Option Academy (PEOA) and 21 teachers from Liberty Academy (LA). After receiving approval from the Tennessee State University Institutional Review Board and officials of both charter schools, the survey and informed consent form were administered to participants during a professional development interval. The teachers were instructed to complete the form on a voluntary basis. Null hypotheses were developed to determine any significant differences regarding the independent variables: 1) to determine kindergarten teacher attitudes towards integrating the Internet into their classroom; 2) the extent of years taught and how accurately this equation predicts teachers’ attitudes towards Internet integration; 3) to determine if there is a relationship between the age of the teacher and attitudes towards Internet integration. The results showed that both Promise Enhanced Option Academy (PEOA) and Liberty Academy (LA) teachers’ attitude were positive towards integrating the Internet into their classroom