METAPHORIC PERCEPTIONS OF PRESERVICE COMPUTER EDUCATION AND INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGIES TEACHERS ON VIRTUAL CLASSROOMS

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to determine the metaphoric perceptions of preservice Computer Education and Instructional Technologies (CEIT) teachers on virtual classrooms. The study was conducted with 178 students studying in year 2., 3. and 4. in the department of CEIT. The reason why these students were selected was because they had pre-knowledge about virtual classroom implementations. During the study, forms including a fill-in-gap sentence “The virtual classroom is like a/an ………………; because …………….” were distributed to the students. Metaphors created by students on virtual classrooms and the common features of these metaphors were tried to be identified through these forms. The 81 metaphors that preservice teachers developed concerning virtual classrooms were divided under 38 categories. Among the categories that the students formed on virtual classrooms were positive categories such as being the same with real classroom-school setting, being virtual, providing time-space independence, ensuring interaction and communication, easy accessibility and repeatability and negative categories such as undisciplined, being non-social and lack of interaction.