Kindergarten Teachers’ Technological Leadership Across Their Careers and During COVID-19

A new study of Israeli kindergarten teachers has challenged a widely held assumption about professional experience and technology: veteran educators are not necessarily less willing or less able to use digital tools than newcomers. Instead, teachers at every point in their careers were found among those who avoided technology, used it cautiously, or embraced it as a platform for innovation. The research, based on interviews with 27 public-kindergarten teachers, identified three distinct patterns of technological leadership during and after the COVID-19 crisis. About 37 percent followed an avoidant pattern, 22 percent practiced what researchers called structured activism, and 40 percent displayed an entrepreneurial approach. The distribution appeared across early-, mid- and late-career groups, suggesting that motivation, confidence and local support may matter more than seniority.

The findings come from Merav Aizenberg and Gila Cohen Zilka, who investigated how kindergarten teachers used technology during the pandemic and how they viewed its role after children returned to classrooms. The participants worked in Israeli public kindergartens serving children aged four to five. Nine teachers had up to five years of experience, nine had between 10 and 22 years, and nine had worked for at least 23 years. Rather than measuring technology use through a standardized questionnaire, the researchers conducted semi-structured interviews, allowing teachers to describe their practices, frustrations and ambitions in their own words. The interviews were transcribed and examined through thematic analysis and axial coding, a qualitative method that links recurring concepts into broader explanatory patterns.

The most widespread digital device was also the most personal and accessible: every teacher reported using a smartphone. Phones were used for calls, messaging, photographs and videos, making them a near-universal bridge between kindergarten staff and families. All participants used WhatsApp and telephone calls, while 74 percent used smartphone photography and 74 percent searched the internet, particularly Google, for images and databases. YouTube was used by 70 percent of teachers. Other hardware was less consistently available: 70 percent reported using Bluetooth speakers or an audio system, 66 percent used computers, 55 percent used tablets and 48 percent used televisions. The quantity of equipment differed between kindergartens, but those differences did not map neatly onto teachers’ career stages.

The software landscape reflected the pandemic’s sudden shift toward remote communication and digital administration. Zoom was used by 88 percent of the teachers during the COVID-19 period and after kindergartens reopened. Excel was used by 81 percent, Word by 85 percent of teachers in the early- and mid-career groups, and PowerPoint by 66 percent. About half used video-editing software. These tools served several functions: organizing records, communicating with parents, producing instructional materials, sharing demonstrations and maintaining contact when in-person teaching was disrupted. Yet access to software did not automatically translate into ambitious educational use. A smartphone might support a rich multimedia activity in one kindergarten but function primarily as a messaging device in another, revealing that digital integration depends on how technology is embedded in pedagogy rather than on ownership alone.

Teachers in the avoidant group used technology only marginally, generally for communication with parents, and had little intention of expanding its role. Their reluctance was not confined to the most experienced educators. One teacher with two years of experience described lacking both the time and desire to learn more, while a teacher with a decade in the profession said she felt afraid of technology and needed someone beside her even to begin a Zoom session. A late-career teacher with 25 years of experience said she did not believe in using technology in kindergarten and had neither a computer nor a tablet. Across these accounts, avoidance appeared to reflect attitudes, perceived competence, available time and beliefs about hands-on learning—not simply age or professional longevity.

The structured-activist group occupied a middle ground. These teachers made a serious effort to use technology during the crisis, often learning specific applications through colleagues, professional groups or short training courses, but reduced their use once normal classroom routines resumed. Their practices were purposeful and organized rather than exploratory. Some created videos and distributed them through the kindergarten’s WhatsApp group, while others used tools such as Padlet or digital puzzles after discovering them through teacher networks. One mid-career participant said technology reduced loneliness, enriched children’s experiences and improved communication, but warned that the key was using it in the correct dose. A late-career teacher described taking advanced digital training and learning Google Docs, yet said that without continuing support, much of the new practice collapsed when children returned to kindergarten.

The entrepreneurial group treated the crisis as an accelerator and technology as an opportunity for continuing transformation. These teachers used tablets, smart televisions, YouTube, Google images, video-editing applications and digital platforms as part of everyday teaching, not merely as emergency communication channels. One teacher used Zoom for individual meetings with parents and organized songs into folders on a tablet. Another produced edited videos linked to classroom topics and shared them through WhatsApp. A teacher with 30 years of experience used Padlet to summarize lessons for parents, showed children videos about planets, created avatars and imagined turning the kindergarten into a “technological community kindergarten.” Such examples illustrate what the researchers mean by entrepreneurial technological leadership: initiating new practices, renewing knowledge, sharing innovations and encouraging others to adopt them.

The study’s central conclusion is that technological leadership in early childhood education is distributed across careers rather than locked into a predictable developmental sequence. The authors describe the three patterns as avoidant, activist and entrepreneurial leadership styles. In technical terms, the result argues against using career stage as a proxy variable for digital readiness. A teacher’s years of service did not reliably predict whether she would integrate information and communication technology into learning, management or family engagement. Instead, the decisive factors appeared to include personal motivation, confidence, attitudes toward technology, professional learning opportunities and the availability of sustained institutional support. The researchers say teacher education should cultivate entrepreneurial digital leadership from the beginning of training and continue it throughout professional development. They also emphasize that technology should be used intentionally, with attention to children’s development, screen-time balance and the teacher’s role as mediator. That mediation includes operational guidance, cognitive support and encouragement of social interaction—not simply placing a device in front of a child. Because the research relied on teachers’ self-reports rather than direct classroom observations, it cannot establish how frequently or effectively the tools were used in practice. Even so, its most shareable message is clear: the future of digital learning in kindergarten may depend less on when teachers began their careers than on whether schools give them the confidence, resources and freedom to lead change.