Lecturers Views of Online Instructors about Distance Education and Adobe Connect

Abstract

Due to the epidemic disease COVID-19, all of the trainings continued to be given via distance education. Since the spring semester of the 2019-2020 academic year, courses have been taught via distance education. For the first time, the vast majority of the instructors who delivered these courses offered their courses using Web-based distance education technologies. A new process has been entered due to the epidemic that has affected the world. In this process, educational institutions were caught unprepared. For this reason, since distance education is a new process, it is possible for faculty members to face various problems. Therefore, determining the opinions of the instructors about the distance education process is important for the improvement and development of the distance education system. The aim of this study is to examine the opinions of the lecturers who provide online courses via distance education through the distance education system and to make suggestions for the improvement of the system. For this purpose, interviews with semi-structured questions were held with 15 instructors in Adobe Connect application and the obtained data were analyzed descriptively. The interviews in the zoom application were recorded. The study group of the research consists of faculty members who have not taught online before, using the distance education platform for the first time. The results of the research are determining the opinions of the instructors about technology, online education, competencies, problems and adobe connect. As a result of the research, it has been revealed that the instructors need in-service training to have sufficient information about the online training platforms, they have a sufficient level of interaction with adobe connect connection, and they need immediate communication with the distance education center in technical problems.