ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS' USE OF TECHNOLOGY IN AND OUT OF SCHOOL


Atal D., Usluel Y. K.

HACETTEPE UNIVERSITESI EGITIM FAKULTESI DERGISI-HACETTEPE UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF EDUCATION, sa.41, ss.24-35, 2011 (SSCI) identifier identifier

Özet

The aim of this study is to determine the expectations and opinions of elementary school students about the technologies which they used in and out of school. The study is based on informal learning approach. Data triangulation method was used to ensure the validity of the study. In the process of collecting data, the methods used were; surveys, semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions. For the reliability of the content analysis, second coder was used. All coefficients of concordance were higher than .85, which was statistically significant. As conclusion, it was found that the participants' use of Facebook, MSN and YouTube are most frequently in their daily life. Wiki and blogs are the least frequent applications they use and nobody even mention about podcasts.. It is worth to mention that, participants do not use many applications other than search engines and Office software for their educational purposes. The applications they were willing to use for their educational purposes were basically in coincidence with the ones they were already using in their daily life. The differences between students' use of technologies, in and out of school are accepted as an indicator of students' digital experience differences.

The aim of this study is to determine the expectations and opinions of elementary school students about the technologies which they used in and out of school. The study is based on informal learning approach. Data triangulation method was used to ensure the validity of the study. In the process of collecting data, the methods used were; surveys, semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions. For the reliability of the content analysis, second coder was used. All coefficients of concordance were higher than .85, which was statistically significant. As conclusion, it was found that the participants' use of Facebook, MSN and YouTube are most frequently in their daily life. Wiki and blogs are the least frequent applications they use and nobody even mention about podcasts.. It is worth to mention that, participants do not use many applications other than search engines and Office software for their educational purposes. The applications they were willing to use for their educational purposes were basically in coincidence with the ones they were already using in their daily life. The differences between students' use of technologies, in and out of school are accepted as an indicator of students' digital experience differences.