Volume Two - Academic Conferences

Designing a U-Learning Course Platform for the Identified
Teacher Training Needs
Nazime Tuncay and Hüseyin Uzunboylu,
Near East University, Nicosia, North Cyprus
nazime.tuncay@gmail.com
huzunboylu@neu.edu.tr
Abstract: Teacher T raining has und ergone m ajor c hanges i n r ecent y ears, w ith t he dev elopment of di gital
information t ransfer, v irtual learning environments(VLE) and s imulations i ntegrated i n learning management
systems having a significant effect on it. Online resources like Edu 2.0 and Second Life (SL) encourage a sense
of c ollaboration and community w hich now needs to b e embraced t hrough t eaching and l earning pr actice.
Researchers, as a r esult of 4 years research study of global e-learning training needs in 25 countries analyzed
the needs of the teachers’ e-education requirements and their preferred e-learner environments. Although, there
were some common needs like “knowledge and skill of preparing e-quizzes”, they found that there was a divide
among teachers’ s kills and knowledge’s. Hence, t he n ecessary s teps t o d evelop proper I CT i nfrastructure
required f or e -Learning are taken. As a r esult of al l t he f indings in t he literature, courses ar e d ecided t o be
delivered to bridge these. A global strategy is decided for moving towards and encouraging teachers towards
deploying e-Learning for their courses. Syllabus is prepared, online evaluation is required and suggestions are
taken from experts coming from different walks of life, from 25 countries. This process ended in 4 months. After
having rewritten the syllabus, course material is prepared and carefully proof read by English teachers and eeducation
experts. The course environment is used by 51 experts and is redesigned by the researchers
according to their suggestions. After 6 months of work, the last form of VirtualNeu (Virtual Near East University
Portal) is published. Encouragement and pr oper incentive t o English Teachers to par ticipate i n the e -training
programs were provided by the ministry of education in North Cyprus. 80 Teachers have registered to the system
and courses will start on 7 September 2011. Researchers mission for the next two years, 4 years and beyond is
clear and unequivocal; like the last four years: Preparing a portal and making it universally accessible and useful
for teachers; delivering e-courses for their specified training needs and, helping them to be more innovative and
more creative individuals who change and improve the world education.
Keywords: Edu 2.0, Second Life, U-education, VirtualNeu, Training Needs of Teachers
1. Introduction
1.1 U-Learning (Ubiquitous Learning)
U-Learning is becoming a necessity of the modern education system. The ubiquitous learning
environment provides an interoperable, pervasive, and seamless learning architecture to connect,
integrate, and share three major dimensions of learning resources: learning collaborators, learning
contents, and learning services (Chang&Shu,2005, Haruo, Kiyoharu, etc.,2003, Cheng, etc., 2005).
The main characteristics of ubiquitous learning are (Chen et al., 2002; Curtis et al., 2002):
Permanency: Learners can never lose their work unless it is purposefully deleted. In addition, all
the learning processes are recorded continuously in every day.
Accessibility: Learners ha ve ac cess t o their d ocuments, da ta, or videos f rom anywhere. T hat
information is provided based on their requests. Therefore, the learning involved is self-directed.
Immediacy: Wherever learners are, they can get any information immediately. Therefore learners
can s olve pr oblems qui ckly. O therwise, t he learner m ay r ecord t he qu estions and look f or t he
answer later.
Interactivity: Learners can interact with experts, teachers, or peers in the form of synchronies or
asynchronous c ommunication. H ence, the ex perts are m ore r eachable and t he k nowledge i s
more available.
Ubiquitous learning is characterized by providing intuitive ways for identifying right collaborators,
right c ontents an d r ight s ervices i n t he r ight pl ace at t he r ight t ime bas ed on s tudents s urrounding
context such as where and when the students are (time and space), what the learning resources and
services av ailable f or the s tudents, and who ar e the l earning c ollaborators that match the s tudents’
needs (Zhang, etc., 2004.; Ogata, etc., 2005; Takahata, etc.; 2004)
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