Opinions of Primary School Teachers on Their Students' ICT Skills and Information Technologies Course

Abstract

In Turkey, elective Information Technologies (IT) course aims to make students gain the skills related to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). In 2010-2011 academic years, IT course was re-scheduled as an elective course for only 6th to 8th grades and course hours were reduced to one hour per week. This study investigated the opinions of primary school teachers from different disciplines on whether ICT skills are required for their courses, and the level of students' ICT skills. We also sought for the teachers' opinions on the recent IT course program revisions. To this end, data was collected from 80 teachers practicing in 7 seven different primary schools in Istanbul. According to the findings, teachers think that their students need ICT skills in primary school courses. The findings indicated that most of the teachers disapprove the IT course program revisions. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.