Çinara CUMABAYEVA | Rita İSMAİLOVA

Article | 2024 | E-Learning and Digital Media ( Published online: 12 Mar 2024 )

The use of Web 2.0 technologies such as social media and user-generated content and their educational prospective attract the attention of many researchers. The results of the vast majority of these studies suggest that the use of social networks in the educational process can be helpful in increasing the quality of education and making it accessible to more students. In order to clarify the students’ opinions, a survey was conducted among students from various majors at leading universities in two Central Asian countries, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. The main objective of the study was to determine factors affecting students’ attitud . . .es toward the usage of Web 2.0 technologies for educational purposes, as well as to examine the difference in the perceptions of Kyrgyz and Kazakh students. As the survey results show, social networks and online resources with user-generated content are gaining more and more importance for students. However, this popularity is not always related to education; the goals of using social networks are mostly for communication and entertainment. The use of social networks in education today is possible as an auxiliary means of conducting lessons. Students rather take the initiative and use social networks as a means of exchanging information on the tasks they perform, as a platform for discussing the topics studied, and the projects being implemented, but not as a dedicated system for education. Despite the similarity in the use of information technologies (and social networks) for educational purposes, in Kazakhstan, students begin to use the Internet specifically for education earlier than Kyrgyz students. Also, students from Kazakhstan more often use platforms in the national language. Keyword: e-learning; education; Kazakhstan; Kyrgyzstan; online tools for education; social medi More less

Gülşat MUHAMETJANOVA | Rita İSMAİLOVA

Article | 2020 | E-Learning and Digital Media17 ( 2 )

The progresses in technology lead to advances in e-learning as well as lead to increase in number of learners participating in e-learning courses. Richness of online resources, activities, and communication tools presented in online courses can be one of the factors that influence learners' attendance to e-learning. In this regard, the initial purpose of this study was to identify online resource, activity and communication tool preferences of learners studying in two public universities: one located in Turkey and one located in Kyrgyzstan. At the second stage, comparison of Turkish and Kyrgyz learners' preferences was carried out t . . .o explore differences in two countries. The participants are first-year undergraduate learners enrolled in first-year courses in the online environment. The total number of participants is 370, which involves 185 Turkish learners and 185 Kyrgyz learners. In the context of this study, participants' submissions to the questionnaire were collected as quantitative data; while participants' opinions toward online resources, activities, and communication tools were obtained as qualitative data. Thus, the study was designed as a mixed methods research that quantitative and qualitative methods were applied for the data analysis. The results demonstrated that Turkish learners perceive communication tools, online exams, and text-based course notes to be the most useful for e-learning, whereas perceive online group activities and wiki pages as not useful enough. On the other hand, Kyrgyz learners perceive interactive materials, online exams, and social media tools to be the most useful for e-learning, whereas perceive online chats and pages as not useful enough. The participants' opinions cover important points for the improvement of current online materials. In addition, learners from Turkey and Kyrgyzstan showed both similarities and differences in terms of their preferences toward online resources, activities, and communication tools, which are explained through this paper More less