Student’s Perceptions on Benefits and Challenges of Using Google Cloud-Based Tools for E-Learning

Abstract

The introduction of innovations in traditional education systems has imposed the need for adjustments and changes to the entire education system and its participants. The most important moment in the evolution of educational systems is the emergence of e-learning platforms as a result of the growing importance of lifelong learning and their integration into traditional educational environments. Especially nowadays, when the world is facing with the pandemic of Covid 19, the importance of the e-learning process and the use of distance learning platforms comes to the fore. The Faculty of Economics in Prilep is adapting to the new situation. For the realization of the process of distance learning were used the tools of Google, i.e. the G Suite cloud-based tools, such as Google Meet, Google Classroom, Gmail, Google Sheets, Google Docs, Google Drive etc. In this paper we will explore the perceptions of students at the Faculty of Economics in Prilep in terms of the benefits provided by these tools and the challenges faced by students in such a new situation where teaching took place completely on-line. For that purpose, a survey was conducted in which students from all study years were included. In this paper will be presented a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the obtained answers through the survey. The questionnaire was created with Google Forms and was delivered to students through the e mail. The main aim of this paper is to detect student’s perceptions of the use of cloud-based elearning tools. In the future, when creating and accrediting study programs, the recommendations contained in this paper could be taken into account in order to introduce elearning as a one of the possible ways for realization of educational process.