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While the demand for open and distance education is increasing, it also faces high dropout rates. The reasons and solutions for student dropouts need considerable attention. This study aims to uncover the reasons for student dropouts considering the perspective of students, field experts, instructors, administrators, and support staff. Data from semi-structured interviews with 40 participants revealed that students decide to drop out mainly due to four main reasons: internal reasons, external reasons, student characteristics, and student skills. These reasons include 37 sub-factors such as academic integration, social integration, financial status, personality, and self-regulation. The sub-factors and selected quotations from the interviews are presented in the findings. According to the results, administrators, field experts, instructors, and support staff are not aware of all the dropout reasons. The results of this research are believed to guide researchers, practitioners, and administrators in enhancing the quality of open and distance education.

The purpose of this study is to reveal the opinions of pre-service teachers regarding the teaching of digital storytelling, which is one of the methods where students actively participate in the learning process, produce content, and learn while having fun, unlike the conventional methods. The research was undertaken as a case study. The study was carried out in Gazi University in the 2015-2016 academic year. The results of the research suggest that the pre-service teachers were mostly pleased with the digital storytelling task. Pre-service teachers who studied in groups were more satisfied and the pre-service teachers believed that digital storytelling positively affected many higher-order thinking skills, creativity in particular. Although higher-order thinking skills are not expected to improve with such short tasks, it can be suggested that the topic may have a positive effect.

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A total of 1023 selected articles published in 2016–2019 related to mobile learning were examined and classified according to the categories in this research: 40% of these articles used quantitative approaches, 18% of them used mixed, and 13% of them were literature reviews. The published studies were analyzed according to research model, sample size, sample level, learning fields, subject-area classification, data collection tool, data analysis technique, dependent variable, independent variable, mobile device, number of authors, and publication year. The findings were analyzed and interpreted as a percentage and frequency. This research will be useful for reviewing current research trends related to mobile learning studies, indicating potential research on the topics, and revealing the needs of the field.

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Today, distance education institutions are different from other traditional organizational structures because they require a virtual structuring. Therefore, the concept and practice of educational leadership is considered as a special area in distance education management process. As a requirement of 21st century, distance education leadership has been seen as a matter or necessity to be developed and to be investigated in the management of distance education. In this chapter, it is aimed to bring the insights of various researchers to define characteristics or qualifications of leadership in distance education, which are or should be different from traditional educational leadership through a literature review relevant to leadership and theories in leadership, educational leadership, and distance education leadership.

<p>Digital storytelling, telling a story with words, images and sounds to create a digital project, is a popular method among educators and researchers. Use of digital storytelling method in classrooms provides many advantages such as supporting 21st century skills for teachers. The purpose of this study is to investigate the history pre-service teachers’ perspective about using of digital storytelling in educational environments. The study was designed qualitative method. Data are collected with semi-structured interview form. The eight pre-service teachers participated in the study that enrolled in History Education at Gazi University.  Two coders construct two schemas from data, and then schemas were revised and determined three themes. These themes are (1) the definition of digital storytelling, (2) the benefits of digital storytelling, and (3) the difficulties in the process of creating digital stories. In conclusion, the participants state that digital storytelling has positive effects/contributions on enhancing students’ motivation and creative thinking skills. In addition, all of the participants state that they will use digital storytelling activities in educational environments when they are in-service.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Özet</strong></p><p><strong></strong>Teknolojinin ucuzlaması ve yaygınlaşmasıyla, dijital hikâye anlatımı her bireyin fırsat bulabileceği kolay bir etkinlik olarak karşımıza çıkmaktadır. Bu durum, dijital hikâye anlatımı etkinliğinin eğitimciler ve araştırmacılar arasında popüler hale gelmesine olanak sağlamaktadır. Bu araştırmanın amacı, tarih öğretmeni adaylarının öğretim ortamlarında dijital hikâye anlatımı etkinliğinin kullanılmasına yönelik görüşlerinin araştırılmasıdır. Araştırmaya, Gazi Eğitim Fakültesi Tarih Eğitimi Anabilim Dalı2.sınıfta okuyan 8 öğretmen adayı katılmıştır. Verilerin toplanmasında yarı yapılandırılmış görüşme formu kullanılmıştır. Verilerin analizi aşamasında iki kodlayıcı, verilerden iki ayrı şema oluşturmuş ve bu şemalar yeniden gözden geçirilerek üç ortak tema belirlenmiştir. Bu temalar (1) dijital hikâye anlatımın tanımı, (2) dijital hikâye anlatımının faydaları, (3) dijital hikâye oluşturma sürecinde yaşanan zorluklar şeklindedir. Araştırma sonunda öğretmen adayları, dijital hikâye anlatım etkinliğinin öğretim sürecinde kullanılmasının öğrenci katılımı, motivasyon ve yaratıcı düşünme becerisi açısından pek çok eğitsel avantajının olduğunu belirtmişlerdir. Buna ek olarak bütün katılımcılar, bu etkinliği görev yapacakları sınıf ortamlarında kullanacaklarını ifade etmişlerdir.</p>