In order to develop a textbook to improve early childhood teachers’ ability to use multimedia required by kindergartens and to examine its effects. This study, first, investigate the status of multimedia application of early childhood teachers in kindergartens, their attitude and anxiety about that, their expertise about it and multimedia education required in early childhood education and curriculum. As a result, 15 categories and 50 subcategories under 4 themes were drawn through the procedures of qualitative analysis.
Based on the results above, for the improvement of early childhood teachers’ ability to use multimedia, a multimedia presentation for learning was designed, including Dale’s Cone of Experience Theory (1954), “Teacher’s Guide for Nuri Curriculum for 5-year-old”, Visual Perception Theory of Gestalt, Rudolf Arnheim’s Visual Sensory Perception Theory and Garr Reynolds’s Presentation Zen Theory. Pre-service early childhood teachers were divided into an experimental group (20 persons) and a control group (20 persons), and after offering classes with ‘a curriculum for the improvement of the ability to use multimedia’ and ‘the existing curriculum’ for 5 weeks, the results obtained through a multimedia application test were evaluated by a group of experts with more than 10 years of multimedia career on a 5-point scale. As a result of an independent sample t-test, there was a significant difference at a level of 0.01%. In other words, the experimental group had a better ability to use multimedia than the control group did.
The conclusions obtained through this study are as follows: Firstly, An education for multimedia application related to the tasks required in kindergartens is needed, instead of the common education for multimedia application to improve the ability to use multimedia for early childhood teachers. Secondly, Multimedia education based on visual theory for the purpose of early childhood education, rather than common features-centered multimedia education is helpful for the improvement of early childhood teachers’ ability to use multimedia. Finally, The improvement of early childhood teachers’ ability to use multimedia will be a chance to provide children with a better educational environment.