Special Education Candidate Teachers’ Metaphors about Social Media

Abstract

Because technology is developing each day and internet is getting easier to access, the types of communication among the people also have a constant alteration. Social media being one of the leads, especially the students undergoing an education frequently use these new communication styles. Studies in this context suggest that students do not use social media only to communicate with each other but also to exchange information, cooperate and share their class materials. In this regard, the perspectives of those who will be teaching students with special needs regarding social media are important to focus on. Therefore, this inquiry aims to identify the approaches of special education candidate teachers about social media courses through metaphors. The phenomenological research design was applied in this study. Participants were chosen from the candidate teachers who studied Special Education Teaching at Sakarya University Education Faculty in 2017 and 2018. The data was collected through the forms which had expressions as "because it is … social media is like … "and content analysis was used to examine this data. The forms were filled by 87 participants and the results show that they have developed 81 different metaphors. Based on the reasons for these metaphors researchers formed 6 categories: life colour, side effect, object, dependency, necessity and waste of time. It was also observed that the perspectives of special education candidate teachers about social media courses were typically positive.

Content Analysis on Mediamorphosis Assisted Learning in Higher Learning Institutions

“…The ability to surf digital media and to interact in a new context encourage its use in daily life (Bagarukayo, 2018). Effective learning designs using the social media will influence and improve the educational component beyond its previous form (Bagci and Bagci, 2020). Fidler's theory shows the increase in the development of new media.…”

“…Therefore, they refuse to change their teaching methods even when surrounded with new technology. In reality, the use of new technology offers additional support for communication among educators and learners, even though the society is aware that digital media may lack sincerity in communication, genuine friendships and cause extreme gadget addiction (Bagci and Bagci, 2020). While the use of technology has benefits in education, overdependence on it may negatively impact daily life such as addiction.…”

“…Social relationships become closer as with the use of social media, people can communicate online, play games together, know daily activities which are shared and so on, without always meeting. These are the best accepted communication tools by university students (Bagci and Bagci, 2020). Favourable social connection and networking offer great benefits to the development of academics.…”

“…Technological development has now been adopted by society in advancing the education system (Nicolaou et al, 2019). The digital era has shown that social media are crucial in supporting tertiary students to expand their social connection between peers and institutions of higher learning (Bagci and Bagci, 2020). The involvement of learners with digital media is a wise idea in maintaining the learning momentum now (Mclain, 2019).…”