Establishment of Computer Education and Instructional Technology Departments (CEIT)*

*This post has been translated using google translate from the following address 😊

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Establishment of Computer Education and Instructional Technology Departments?
Bilgisayar ve Öğretim Teknolojileri Eğitimi Bölümlerinin Kuruluşu?

Hello:
This issue came up in the last two meetings I attended, and as far as I listened, the presenters always carefully said the following sentence: “This speech is based on my own knowledge in this field”. In the first of these conversations, I did not make any comments, but in the second I felt the need to add what I remembered. In fact, 3. The National CEIT Student Congress was held on 16-17 May 2009 at Eskişehir Osmangazi University Meşelik Campus and I gave a speech on this subject there. My presentation at the congress can be accessed from the link “Past, Present, Tomorrow of CEITs”.

In this presentation, I shared what I knew about the conditions under which CEITs were established.

In fact, the story started with the Formator Teacher Trainings in the 80s when the XT (8088) and AT (80286) machines released by IBM started to be used by the Ministry of National Education in Turkey, an example of these programs is given in the following 2 figures.

As an explanation;
FORMATIVE TEACHER TRAINING COURSE AT BDE PROGRAMThis course General purpose: In schools Regular and efficient operation of computer laboratories, other training of teachers on the use of computers in education, and knowledge, skills necessary for the conduct of the school’s computer services, and to train formative teachers with attitudes.
The duration and content of these courses have changed a lot over time, as the need first provides general information 1. Teachers who attended evolution courses passed this 2. In evolution courses, they attended courses where more advanced computer knowledge was imparted. Figure 4 shows 1. It shows a document given after the evolution course (1993).

On the one hand, while the training of Formative Teachers continued, on the other hand, when the need for teachers to teach computer courses in schools began to emerge, starting from the 1994-1995 academic year, within the body of the Department of Science Education of Middle East Technical University, in order to meet the need for teachers to teach “Computer” courses, which started to be included in the curriculum of schools up to the university, “Computer Teaching“i” Department was established. In the figure below (Figure 5.), the justification part of my application for the establishment of an “Educational Technologies Laboratory” in this Faculty, where I was a faculty member at the same time, is given.

It was understood in a very short time that the need for Computer Teachers could not be met only by this department, and this department was reshaped as a department in 1997 after the restructuring carried out within the framework of the “National Education Development Project” carried out by the Council of Higher Education, and the first one was “Computer Education and Instructional Technologies Education” within the Middle East Technical University.” and started to accept students. My connection with CEITs came about when I started to work as the head of the department in the first department established in Turkey after the departments were established. Hasan Karaaslan, Soner Yıldırım, Zahide Yıldırım, Ömer Delialioğlu, Miraç banu Gündoğan, who worked in the Department of Science during the first establishment phase, later moved to this department. Within the framework of the NEDP project, many students were sent abroad to become faculty members in these departments (Cengiz S. Aşkun, Kürşat Çağıltay come to mind)
In the 1994-1995 academic year, students who entered the “Computer Teaching” departments were adapted to these departments and started to graduate from these departments in 1998. On Facebook, the CEIT2000 group continues to share as a group of students who started and graduated in this way.
The establishment of the undergraduate programs of the departments was followed by the opening of the Master’s and Doctorate programs. As the head of the department, I had the chance to be the first head of the department of these CEITs programs (Figure 6, Figure 7).

The establishment of the first department at METU was followed by other universities, and after a while, there was a shortage of faculty members and a need for the courses to be taught in the CEIT program. Thereupon, with the decision of the Council of Higher Education, it was decided to organize a Certificate Program (EDUCATION II, IDE_AS (Internet-Based Education Asynchronous, Synchronous) with Internet Explorer) in order to meet this need. Figure 8.

This program, consisting of 6 courses, was presented as an example of a typical blended program. Participants from different universities (more than 50 young academics of that period, who are now working as professors at different universities) participated in the introductory program of the courses they would take over the Internet for 12 days, and then the courses were held over the Internet for a semester. At the beginning of the second semester, after a face-to-face training for 12 days, the remaining three courses were presented to the participants via Inernet.

Courses
in this program 1. Period

• Information Technologies in Education
• Operating systems
• Computer Networks

Semester 2

• Authoring Languages (PC)
• Authorship Languages (WWW)
• Instructional Technologies

As can be understood from the curriculum and scope, the program was designed and implemented to provide more knowledge and skills in “Computer or ICT”.

IDE_AS (Internete Dayalı Eğitim_Asenkron Senkron)
Would he be a computer teacher? As a result of the lack of pre/post-undergraduate programs on “Computer Teaching/Education” in the USA, academics who went abroad within the framework of the project or from other sources started to be discussed increasingly after completing their education/training in the departments of Instructional Technology, Educational Technology, Instructional Design, etc.

This was actually due to the fact that the problem was very new, and as for the reason, these departments were not related to the existence of the “Educational Technology” department, the foundations of which were laid by Mr. Cevat Alkan at Ankara University many years ago. The problem arose directly from how to train teachers who would play a role in providing students with the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes about “Computers” up to the university level. In fact, the problem still maintains the same temperature, in the figure below is an article written by Çağlayan Arkan, one of the former presidents of Microsoft Turkey. Subject: “Turkey is developing with informatics“

On the same subject, MS Vice President Steve Ballmer, who visited our country in April 2009, said that he would help those who wanted to become Bill Gates at a young age (Figure 11).

In PISA 2012, which has been fiercely discussed this year, it is said that children with high creative problem-solving skills also have high computer skills. These and similar results are highlighted in the results of TIMSS 2007, TIMSS 2011 and PISA 2009. The worst thing is that we are slowly starting to fall behind in this race where we started fast. As for the reason, the “Digital Divide“, which is called “Digital Divide” and is only talked about owning, is also mentioned in the PISA 2009 results and I shared my fears before this report, and the “second split” is engulfing us with all its violence. This second rift emphasizes “using technology for productive purposes” rather than ownership, and points to the gap between those who learn it and those who cannot. Children of the 21st century must have “Algorithmic Thinking” and “Computational Thinking” skills. These skills should be given to these children by teachers who have the knowledge of teaching the subject matter using technology (TPACK). These teachers are “Computer” teachers, and there can be no other place in the departments that will train them other than the CEITs that were initially established for this purpose. As I was writing this article, I can’t help but think about how to solve this problem, I think the following sentence in the ERG report for the evaluation of the FATIH project is like the most accurate interpretation “Adults are not ready“.

Sincerely,
M. Yaşar Özden