Secondary School Teachers' Opinions on the Use of Informatics Network (EBA) in Education

Abstract

During the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak that affected the whole world, the existence and function of education informatics network gained much more importance than before. It is also important to bring teachers and students together on the same platform by providing rich educational content, especially in such a period. In the current study, secondary school teachers' opinions about EBA were determined through semi-structured interviews.The data of the study were collected through semi-structured interviews, one of the qualitative research methods.A case study was adopted as a research design. The study was carried out in the spring semester of the 2019-2020 academic year.A total of six teachers including one mathematics and five science teachers from various provinces and districts of Turkey. The teachers participating in the research were selected by purposeful sampling method, taking into account the criteria of using the informatics network (EBA) continuously in education during their education activities.The data obtained from the interviews were analyzed with content analysis, coded and themes were created. Results indicated that although teachers sometimes experience technical problems, they generally stated that they found EBA contents useful for students. They thought that EBA offers students versatile features and contains content according to almost every student's learning style. In addition, teachers also mentioned the benefits of EBA in terms of reporting a lot of information such as what activities students did in EBA, which questions they solved, and the correct/incorrect rates of solved questions. Teachers also stated that there are many features that should be added to EBA. They thought that the number of simulation applications and online games on the platform should be increased. Although some of the teachers thought that the questions in EBA were useful for the students, while others thought the questions were insufficient in scope. In addition to these, teachers criticized that students' entry to EBA is limited for a certain period of time.