Turkey:Istanbul

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Yuksel Goktas
Department of Computer Education & Instructional Technology, Middle East Technical University

Burcu Orenturk Aybat
Enka Schools, Sadi Gulcelik Spor Sitesi


Contents

Istanbul, a metropolis, has developed into the 10th largest city on earth largely due to its geopolitical location. It is spread over 5,220 square kilometer (km2) of land. Istanbul’s population density, 1928, is 19 times higher than Turkey’s average. 15% of Turkey’s population and 23% of Turkey’s urban population live in Istanbul (General Directorate of Population and Citizenship, 2005). The average household income of 2003 is 47,000 YTL (around $34,000), which is the highest in Turkey. The city which has the next highest household income is Ankara with an average of 14,000 YTL (TurkStat, 2003). Istanbul is home to an estimated 10 million inhabitants and attracts a great number of immigrants every year. It is an ever-growing city with its population increasing around 5% per year (Istanbul Directorate of Planning and Coordination, 2000).

The city has developed on two continents. There is the European side with the historical peninsula to the south of the Golden Horn and to the north of it the Galata District – the trade and business centre; and there is the Asian side, which is largely residential. Istanbul has a long and interesting history: Byzantium was the city's original name; it was changed to Constantinople during the height of the Holy Roman Empire. Today, the city is still a political and commercial centre for Balkan and Middle Eastern countries, as well as for the Turkish Republics of Central Asia. As the city is the crossroads of East and West, the cultural, religious, and architectural synthesis is unlike that of any other city.

Figure 4. Picture of Maiden’s Tower and the Bosphorus Strait, courtesy of Metin Yildrim, April 4th, 2006.
Figure 4. Picture of Maiden’s Tower and the Bosphorus Strait, courtesy of Metin Yildrim, April 4th, 2006.
Figure 5. Picture of Taksim Square, courtesy of Faruk Koçak, April 11th, 2006[1].
Figure 5. Picture of Taksim Square, courtesy of Faruk Koçak, April 11th, 2006[1].

In such a large geographic area, education is an issue of great importance. The state and private schools in Istanbul number 1,454. Most schools in Istanbul are public schools funded and administrated by the government, although the number of private schools in Istanbul is much greater than in other cities in Turkey. As of the 2004-2005 school year, the city had approximately 1,560,633 students were being taught by 43,943 teachers in 1,269 state schools and there were 54,771 students, 6,312 teachers in 191 private schools. This dramatic difference between the numbers of state and private schools indicates that there is only one teacher per 36 students in state schools, which is a very low teacher-student ratio when compared with that of private schools with one teacher per 9 students (MoNE, 2004).

Figure 6. Istanbul is built on two continents, Europe and Asia, courtesy of Ali Ba?ar?r, April 17th, 2006.
Figure 6. Istanbul is built on two continents, Europe and Asia, courtesy of Ali Ba?ar?r, April 17th, 2006.
Figure 7. Picture of the Blue Mosque and the Golden Horn, courtesy of Selçuk Eracun, April 14th, 2006.
Figure 7. Picture of the Blue Mosque and the Golden Horn, courtesy of Selçuk Eracun, April 14th, 2006.

Enka Schools is one of the 191 private schools located in Istanbul. It is in the Sariyer District. The region which the Sariyer District serves is an extremely large geographic area covering about 162 square kilometers. The region has a population of about 242,543. (General Directorate of Population and Citizenship, 2005) The district has approximately 50 primary schools, 12 of which are private, and 17 high schools, 11 of which are private. (Istanbul Directorate of National Education, 2004) This means that approximately ¼ of the primary schools and more than half of the high schools in the Sariyer District are private. Enka Schools is incorporated as a private institution subject to the laws and regulations of the Turkish Ministry of National Education.

Figure 8. Aerial Picture of Enka Schools, courtesy of Enka Schools (www.enkaschools.com)
Figure 8. Aerial Picture of Enka Schools, courtesy of Enka Schools (www.enkaschools.com)

The ENKA Foundation, a pioneering company, has contributed to a range of projects, including the construction of industrial plants, docks, marine slipways, shipyards, grain silos, bridges, roads and piers, all in the Istanbul area. It has made the contribution necessary to create and sustain capital investment. Enka Schools itself exists as an independent non-profit corporation directed by an unsalaried Executive Committee and is expected to generate sufficient income to be self-supporting in its day-to-day operations. Since opening in September, 1996, with just over 200 students, ENKA Schools has moved from temporary quarters to its rapidly-expanding main campus on the Sadi Gulcelik Sports Site in the Sariyer district in Istanbul.

More than 1000 students from pre-school through grade ten commute daily from both the Asian and European sides of the Bosphorus to attend Enka Schools. With every passing year, additional 100 students and ten to twelve teachers join this expanding academic community. In October, 1999, following the earthquake in the Sea of Marmara region east of Istanbul, the ENKA Foundation opened a school for the young victims of this disaster. The campus of the second school is situated near Adapazari, a mid-sized industrial city in which most of the buildings were destroyed and the population decimated by the earthquake. This school serves more than four hundred pre-school, primary and high school children in a flourishing new community.

Figure 9. School starts at 8:30 at Enka Schools.
Figure 9. School starts at 8:30 at Enka Schools.
Figure 10. Enka Schools Auditorium
Figure 10. Enka Schools Auditorium

Enka Schools consists of 1028 students and 150 teachers (one teacher per 7 students). The school is fully authorized to offer the Primary Years Programme (PYP) and the Diploma Programme of the International Baccalaureate (IB) which is a recognized leader in the field of international education, encouraging students to be active learners, well-rounded individuals and engaged world citizens (see http://www.ibo.org for the detailed information). The school is divided into four sections: kindergarten with 136 students and 12 teachers (one teacher per 6 students), lower grades in primary (grades 1 to 5) with 451 students and 62 teachers (one teacher per 7 students), the higher grades in primary (grades 6 to 8) with 298 students and 48 teachers (one teacher per 6 students) and high school with 143 students and 28 teachers (one teacher per 5 students). 92 classrooms, 56 offices, 4 computer labs, 5 science labs (2 physics labs, 2 chemistry labs, a biology lab), a ballet room, an infirmary, 2 libraries, a multimedia room, Enka Store, an auditorium, 4 meeting rooms, 4 seminar rooms, 2 gymnasiums, 2 swimming pools, 5 tennis courts and 1 athletic field serve the members of the Enka Schools family.

Educational Technology at Enka Schools

Technical Infrastructure

Use of technology is a crucial element of life at Enka Schools. Both students and teachers seek the possible uses of different technologies to bring productivity and usefulness to everyday life. Throughout the offices and electronic classrooms in the school there are 206 desktop and laptop computers which are used by 215 school staff members. Four computer laboratories contain 75 desktop computers and 4 projectors which serve teachers of all departments. The libraries have 27 networked computers, projectors, televisions, and a networked database of their holdings. Teacher and student network systems are separate from each other in order to protect the security of the teacher system in which the SchoolTeam™ program (school management software developed exclusively for Enka Schools) operates. The student network system has an ADSL connection with 1 Mb bandwidth; the teacher system, on the other hand, has a leased line with 2 Mb bandwidth. The school intranet, named Esnet, was developed by the ICT team three years ago and is now used widely by the school staff. Esnet includes all needed electronic documents, announcements and recent news and is a productive means of communication between teachers and personnel in the school. One ICT team member works exclusively on the management of Esnet and the school web site.

Technology Teaching Classrooms

The Educational Technology Department has developed a technology program based on Turkish educational standards used for fourth and fifth grades in primary school. In the lessons the students develop core skills for productivity, technology concepts, research-inquiry, problem solving, and communication. Effective Internet usage, word processing, presentation making, spread sheet usage, publishing well designed documents and touch-typing are some examples of the skills which the program aims to develop.

Students start ninth grade with basic abilities in word processing, presenting, Internet research and e-mail usage. In ninth grade, students learn how to create documents with advanced page and paragraph settings in word processing programs, spread sheets that include functions and calculations, charts for these sheets, databases in order to keep data in an organized way and to make data queries and simple web pages to understand the structure of web site addresses. In tenth grade students may take an elective course which teaches programming skills in a currently popular programming language. This year Visual Basic .NET is under the scope of the tenth grade elective computer course curriculum.

Figure 11. Ninth grade Computer class
Figure 11. Ninth grade Computer class
Figure 12. Fifth grade Computer class
Figure 12. Fifth grade Computer class

Technology Integration into Subject Areas

In Kindergarten, and grades 1-8, homeroom and subject teachers make use of the ICT facilities in cooperation with ICT specialists. Various types of software are used in creative and collaborative activities in different areas and grades. The school promotes the use of various technologies for sophisticated problem-solving and information-retrieving purposes. Nevertheless, Enka Schools does not use technology only for technology's sake; a vision is developed regarding how technology can improve teaching and learning, and each separate aspect of technology is used for a purpose. For example, word processing and e-mail promote communication skills in various clubs and literature classes; modeling software promotes the understanding of science and math concepts in those classes; database and spreadsheet programs promote organizational skills; and the Internet promotes inquiry skills in all areas.

Figure 13. Second grade students are using Kispiration software program.
Figure 13. Second grade students are using Kispiration software program.
Image:Turkey 14.jpg
Figure 14. Fourth grade students are using the Internet and search engines.

In early grades, both Turkish and English teachers use computers in preparing for their lessons by doing research on the Internet regarding different activities all around the world, designing useful materials for their classrooms, publishing worksheets as both in-class and out-of-class activities for students and completing lesson plans. Ozugumus, a first grade homeroom teacher, says: “Presentation tools are the most-used technological tools in our classroom. We teach sounds and words with the help of slide shows.” The computer is used not only in teaching how to read and write but also in activities about various math problems and comparing numbers and objects. Students become familiar with educational software which serves to improve different skills such as organizing, grouping, summarizing, making connections, comparing and contrasting. Kidspiration is one of the powerful software programs that help students improve their skills. Kapdan, a first grade homeroom teacher, says: “They really like to be there, in the computer lab. They pass through the door to a magic world. They have never enjoyed themselves so much as when they are grouping foods in Kidspiration”. The computer is not the only instrument that is used: VCDs, DVDs, a variety of educational softwares (e. g., Storyworld, Lokomotif’s products) stored on CDs, TV and projectors are the other useful pieces of equipment in early grade classrooms.

DVDs, video stories related to the text, recorded books, audio books and music CDs are the most-used materials for fourth and fifth grade English classrooms. Teachers document much work via video cameras in order to show the learning process to parents on the children's portfolio days. The Internet and search engines are widely used in different parts of the activities, sometimes as an icebreaking or research tool in the middle of the process. Johnson says: “Newsletter publishing was one of my favorite activities because it was enjoyable, friendly and authentic”. As a fourth grade English teacher he claims “In general, writing on the computer improves the authentic editing skills of the kids; they evaluate their own writing. On the other hand, students do not even need to check their mistakes while they are writing by hand. Students experience the full publishing process which they cannot do when they write by hand”. He adds: “it needs good preparation the first time but later on I only guide them. That’s all… It is an advantage to the classroom management that students can work at their own pace. But I have to set my goals clearly at the beginning and then choose the tools accordingly”.

Figure 15. Fourth grade English class
Figure 15. Fourth grade English class
Figure 16. Ninth grade Research Technique class
Figure 16. Ninth grade Research Technique class

Middle and high school teachers use technology a lot to conduct both daily and professional activities. That’s why technology usage in classroom activities increases in upper grade classrooms. Apayd?n, a middle school Turkish teacher, says: “We have just finished my favorite project which is preparing “my favorite 10 poems” booklets with sixth graders. They search on the net, read poems aloud in the class and share them with their friends. It is fantastic to see how enthusiastic they are about poems.”

In the English Department, use of technology is focused primarily on production and presentation tasks. Students use word-processing to prepare essays and to assist in the revision and publication process. Students become familiar with presentation tools and use them for their end-of-year exhibitions of their research term projects. Of course, in the process of doing research they use the Internet and subscription database resources such as EBSCOhost.

In the Modern Languages Department, the word processor is used to prepare final copies of letters and written assignments; presentation tools are used to do various multimedia presentations on such topics as: My Autobiography, My Travel Experiences, and a research topic of the student's choice. Using a graphic organizer program, students prepare and present such projects as My Imaginary Family and My Autobiography. Students generally write a draft of their text and prepare a final version using images, scanned pictures or clipart to complete these projects. They use the Internet extensively to work on French and German language learning sites set up for learners of a foreign language. They also use it to find information on a research topic and images that can support a particular project. For students working on a research project, the EBSCOhost subscribed data base has a high rating for providing reliable information. They commonly use the Rosetta Stone French levels 1 and 2 which have interactive lessons involving speaking, listening, reading, and writing. It is very good language software and gives valuable support to what is learned in the classroom. Modern foreign language students are presently doing a project in which they correspond with students in other countries, namely Romania and Italy.

Inspiration is a widely-used graphic organizer program in Enka which is similar to Kidspiration but designed for upper grades. The Science Department uses this tool in their concept map activities. Furthermore, technologies on which the science department bases its activities are the following: presentation tools and word processors for projects, various videos (Discovery School, Student Deviant) and Vitamin CDs consisting of examples and simulations for subject presentations, Internet for researching, preparation for experiments and virtual labs, animations and simulations, dataloging (Phywe) which makes graphics in electronic environment for collecting data such as pressure in the science laboratory.

Math teachers use mostly graphing calculators in their classrooms. Ozdas, a middle school math teacher, says: “Calculators make mathematics more accessible to students. The calculator is a vehicle that students drive on the way from problem to solution”. Presentation tools for visual proof and displaying graphics, database programs for experimental results and graphical functions, and Cabri for geometry are the other technologies which are used in math classes. Ozdas adds: “My favorite was an after school activity in which students used an ultrasonic motion detector- CBR. I was as excited as the students when they realized how easy it was to connect math to the real world.” The Math Department is now studying the strategies for effective use of new interactive whiteboard technology- Mimio. A few teachers from the math, science, language and ICT departments who were willing to create new educational environments launched a major effort to add a whiteboard solution. Thus, the school was outfitted with this latest technology at the beginning of the educational year 2004-2005 by purchasing one Mimio for each of five departments.

Social studies teachers use technology in their classrooms as well as in their daily routines. The Internet offers them a vast amount of resources that are otherwise not available in any one geographical location. Tongal, a high school history teacher, says: “We can easily find the answer to a question or different points of view that we are wondering about just at that time. No matter where we are”. This year Google Earth is their favorite technological tool. Suzer, a middle school geography teacher says: “It is powerful, real and fun. How can I teach meridian and parallel or plot of the ground better? This is all I need.” In addition, other educational software (Vitamin, Kidsplus etc.), history films, national geography documents and the Internet are used by social science teachers. These teachers have an extremely rich Macromedia Flash animation library shared with the other 300 members of the Turkish Geography Foundation since 2003. Suzer is the head of the foundation and states: “Since we started to use technology effectively it has been easy to reach each other and share what we know. Visit www.tck.org.tr and see how far we have come”.

Art and Music teachers are excited to use technology to present artists and their works. Adali, a music teacher, says: “With Finale 2000, Note has simplified use through a user-friendly interface”. Peker, an art teacher, says: “My favorite activity is designing posters and logos by computer programs because with them students have chances to discover their creativity in a professional environment”. The libraries have incorporated technologies into both managing their resources and providing sources and services to students and faculty. A variety of electronic resource materials are available including: DVDs, VCDs, CDROMs, music CDs, story cassettes, and videos. Encouraging students to find, select and evaluate electronic information is an important part of the teaching role in the library and both the Internet and EBSCOhost, a database of peer-reviewed journal articles, magazines and reference materials, are used. A multimedia room offers a place for teachers and students to come together for both research and student presentations and is equipped with satellite TVs and projection equipment. Follett Library software is used to manage and provide access to the book collection.

Figure 17. Tenth grade students in the library
Figure 17. Tenth grade students in the library

Technology has been fully integrated into the research techniques class for the past two years. All lessons take place in a multimedia room, and technology usage is vitally important. Students construct their own methods to select appropriate technology tools and applications to retrieve and manage information. They also learn to use strategies to retrieve information from a variety of electronic sources, participating in activities that aim to close the gap between technology and its efficient use.

Social clubs are vitally important in the Enka Schools’ educational system. There are various clubs in different areas and all students must be involved in at least one of them. Almost all of the clubs use technologies, especially CMC (Computer Mediated Communication) services. For example, the Socrates Club is affiliated with other student clubs all around Europe. It uses communication tools in order to create a common sense in their partnership and computers for developing international projects. The Astronomy Club is in cooperation with a Greek school astronomy club. This is another example of using technology for electronic communication. Also, for the past three years the school magazine has been designed in a professional manner by club students through a widely-used publication tool.

Teacher Technology Training

More and more teachers are taking technology courses every year in order to improve technology usage skills which are needed when they are developing and conducting curriculum projects in the school. The majority of teachers are becoming "technology smart" with the help of outsourced technology training at the pioneering academies Kocbryce (2003-2005) and Bilge Adam (2005-2006), which offer business solutions in Turkey. This year 31 teachers participated in the Microsoft Office courses of Bilge Adam and received certificates. In addition to these opportunities funded by the school, every year newcomers (approximately 25-30 new teachers and personnel join Enka Schools every year) receive in-house training organized by the ICT team at the beginning of the educational year.

Two Students

Teksen and Merve were selected as cases because of their well-balanced use of technology in both school subjects and their daily-life activities. They are totally different students but have common personality traits, such as taking responsibility for their actions, caring for other people, being curious and inquiring, taking things seriously and working hard to learn well.

Merve

Merve is a 12 year-old, sixth grade student, born in Istanbul. She has one brother who is 16 years old, Mehmet, and one sister who is 5 years old, Zeynep. All three of the children attend the same school. Merve's father is a jeweler and works in tourism. (They have a hotel in Marmaris near the Aegean Sea). Her mother is a stay-at-home mom. The family has one more member, a 3-year-old Siamese cat named Abidin.

Figure 18. Merve, courtesy of Merve and her family
Figure 18. Merve, courtesy of Merve and her family
Figure 19. Merve with her family
Figure 19. Merve with her family

Her teacher's first comment about Merve is what a friendly, talkative, and extroverted person she is. She then added that Merve is positive and cheerful. All of Merve's teachers agreed with the statement that she is a consistently hardworking student. She is good at writing and speaking in English. This year she is studying French. She thinks that learning French is fun and easy. Her favorite lessons are English, Science, Social Studies, Math, Gymnastics and Computer. She loves to do projects and design and create technologically enhanced products. Merve loves to wear earrings, necklaces and bracelets which she has designed herself. She attended a course on jewelry-making and now makes jewelry at her home in her free time. Because of her love for designing and making jewelry, she hopes to be a jewelry designer when she grows up. Merve plans to complete high school, go to America to attend a university and study Fine Arts. Then she will return to Turkey and start designing jewelry in her father’s place of work.

However, this is not the only evidence that Merve is willing to improve in different areas. She said: “I love wood painting and I took a course in it last year. It was enjoyable.” In addition to this impressive display of activities in comparison to other students of her age, she plays piano, tennis and volleyball and was captain of the volleyball team in the fourth and fifth grades in her school. She says: “I can’t live without volleyball”.

Figure 20. Merve is using computer at home.
Figure 20. Merve is using computer at home.

Merve’s typical day does not seem like anyone else’s. Every school day, her cell phone alarm rings at 7:10 to wake her up. Then she dresses and has breakfast with her sister and brother. After breakfast, they go to their school with their driver at 8:20. Her school finishes at 15:30. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday, she goes to volleyball practice. But on other days of the week, with her sister, she goes home with her driver at 15:30 (her brother’s lessons finish at 16:10). When she comes home, she plays with her cat Abidin in the garden, and then eats some fruit or a cucumber with a cold drink and watches T.V. while she’s eating. She does her homework while listening to her Apple I-Pod Nano (a portable audio player). She uses the Internet very often, for example to find a word that she couldn’t understand in her English homework (sometimes she uses electronic dictionaries) or to search other things. She says: “[The] Internet is so important for me; I could find anything on it”. One big difference between Merve and her peers is that she is always self-confident when she is using any kind of technology. Her self-confidence may be related to the ability to choose the right technology for the task she is given. Most students of her age lack this, ability which leads them to misuse technology.

When she finishes her homework, she makes jewelry. Then she plays volleyball and tennis with her mother and practices the piano. After practicing, she uses her computer to look at her e-mails, to talk with her friends on MSN Messenger, to download songs for her I-Pod Nano and to play computer games (though she prefers playing games on her PlayStation 2). Merve and her peers are similar in that they all can use different technologies easily such as I-Pod, cell phone, T.V., camera, printer, scanner, fax machine, video player, music player, DVD, VCD, calculator and phone. Usually at 19:55 her father comes home and all of the family members eat dinner together. While they're eating, they talk about what they did during the day and new things that happened. After dinner they watch T.V. together, and at 23:00 she reads a book of her choice until she falls asleep. This is the typical day of a young but versatile girl.

Teksen

Teksen is a 15 year-old, tenth grade student with brown eyes and hair, born in Istanbul. He is a very social person and often meets his friends to go out and have fun. His father has a brokerage firm and his mother is a biologist. He has a younger sister who goes to the same school.

Figure 21. Teksen is using computer at home, courtesy of Teksen and his family.
Figure 21. Teksen is using computer at home, courtesy of Teksen and his family.
Figure 22. Teksen with his friends at shool
Figure 22. Teksen with his friends at shool

He is in the middle of his teenage years. Like other teenagers, he is often confused when he thinks about his future. Teksen says: “When I consider my future life, I sometimes feel awful because it looks like a road which has no end. However, thanks to my education, I can see the place that I have to be in the future. For example, I know that I won’t be a biologist, even though I am good at biology. But what I really know is that I want to be at the top.” He adds: “I do not know whether technology has a role in my future plans, but technology makes the abstract education that I take more concrete. That is important to help me make healthy decisions about myself and my future.” When he is asked to describe his typical day, he says: “This is a typical day. I wake up with the words "You will be late." I can’t eat my breakfast because of my low level of appetite and two closed eyes. I don't do well in the first lessons but I feel better later on, thanks to my friends. They always remind me to go to the restroom to wash my face, which wakes me up.” Teksen goes to the cinema once a week with his friends. He plays all kinds of sports and he is successful in school. He is also a PC-gamer like peers of his age who tracks the new games coming out and buys magazines about PC games. He has finished dozens of games. He generally plays on the Internet with his friends for he thinks it is more fun than playing by himself. He says: “I am addicted to my computer. Some people say that playing the computer so much makes a person unsocial. Ah well, I am the person who proves the exception to this rule.” Teksen and his peers are similar in that they are all “addicted” to recent technologies. What makes his generation special is that children of his age follow the latest technologies and are more enthusiastic about trying to learn them in comparison to adults. He does not hesitate to say: “I use technology every second of my life. I use it at school, at home, and I use it even at my father’s office.”

Teksen actually has extraordinary ideas about technology compared to his peers, which makes him special in the school. “What I think is that the world is getting wrapped up with this thing we call technology. It is getting easier to reach everything by notebooks, cell phones, MP3 players, etc. In my opinion, technology has become a part of a human. We are so used to using it in every part of our lives. For instance, using elevators instead of using the stairs or typing instead of writing. Most importantly, technology allows me to contact millions of people around the world with only one click. Life on this earth would probably stop if someone took away technology.” With a slight hesitation he adds: “I am sure that technology will keep developing and reaching the people it could not reach before. And, me? Well, I will continue to use technology as much as I can, I will continue to get the benefits of it and suffer from its bad effects.”

Teksen and Merve are good representatives of Enka Schools students. They embody the profile that Enka Schools embraces, a profile which seeks to develop open-minded, caring, well-balanced, knowledgeable, reflective, principled students who are inquirers, thinkers, risk takers and communicators. These students are lucky to have financial advantages but this is not what makes them special. Merve and Teksen are ambitious to use their opportunities in order to make their dreams come true, which mean that they are more than ready for life outside school. Enka Schools offers similar technological opportunities as other private schools in Istanbul. However, most public-school students do not have similar opportunities meaning that unfortunately they are disadvantaged when trying to acquire new technologies. On the other hand, the cases of Merve and Teksen are good examples to explain what could happen if public schools offered the same technological opportunities in Turkey. By eliminating physical obstacles (infrastructure problems and economic difficulties) and concentrating more on enriching education by using technology as an effective tool rather than investing money in enriching technological tools, there could be numerous students like Merve and Teksen not only in private but also in public schools in Turkey.

Enka Schools: Plans for the future

So what would Enka Schools like to add to its future plans in the way of technology integration? The ICT department has many innovative plans which will keep the entire system up to date. One thing which the department members are doing is searching the possible uses of Share Point Portal in the school. The system is now under the examination of the ICT team. As each year begins, a new lab equipped with the latest technologies and the upgrading of the overall system of the school are included in the technology development plan of the year. The ICT team is now waiting, full of enthusiasm, for the new version of Microsoft Windows Vista, which may be the new technology of Enka Schools following years. This faster, streamlined and helpful version of Windows will offer easy-to-use and consistent experience to Enka Schools staff. Enka schools users will feel confident with this user friendly version and will be able to easily access what they are searching for.

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Yildirim, S. (2005). The Role of E-Learning in Teachers and Trainers Training (TTT) in Turkey. Unpublished Research Report. METU.

Notes

  1. See more pictures of Istanbul at: http://galeri.istanbul.gov.tr, http://www.istanbul.net.tr/, http://www.360tr.com, and http://www.vila-int.com

Related cases

Turkey

This is a case study for the city of Istanbul located in Turkey.

About the authors

Yuksel Goktas has completed his B.S. degree in Department of Computer Education from Gazi University. He also received an M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Education and Instructional Technology from Middle East Technical University in Turkey. He was a visiting schoolar at Purdue University's Educational Technology Program during 2005-2006. Dr. Yuksel is interested in technology integration, technology policies in education, service learning, problem based learning, and history of IT
Burcu Orenturk Aybat is currently employed at Enka Schools, Istanbul, Turkey as computer teacher and educational technologist supporting teachers to integrate technologies into their classes. She graduated from Middle East Technical University with a B.S. and M.S. degree in Computer Education and Instructional Technology. Her research interests include methods of integrating technology into curriculum, training teachers to integrate technology effectively into their classrooms, research-based learning, use of research techniques in multidisciplinary environment, computer mediated communication (CMC) technologies in education. She has been working for six years in primary and high schools in Turkey

Citation

APA Citation: Goktas, Y. & Aybat, B. O. (2006). Turkey:Istanbul. In M. Orey, T. Amiel, & J. McClendon (Eds.), The web almanac of educational technologies. Retrieved <insert date>, from http://www.waet.uga.edu/