The Future of Education

Within this study, self-learning processes of children who have never used a computer before were observed by leaving them alone with a computer. Afterwards, brief information was given to participants based on their level and questions were asked to arouse their curiosity. In this research where participants were left with a computer both individually and as a group, self and collaborative learning processes were organized. This study was conducted as an ethnographic action research in Diyarbakir which is a region deprived of educational and technological opportunities with a mixed ethnic and cultural structure in Turkey. Within the scope of the research; observing computer and technology training process with a new perspective, accessing to detailed and authentic data on the learning process, measuring the effectiveness of self-learning and examining the impact of the peer education and cooperative learning on self-learning process were primary goals to be achieved. The work group consisted of 16 children and their ages ranged between 6-10. During the research process, field notes were taken, observations were made, thinking aloud notes, video and audio recordings were taken. At the end of the research, interviews were conducted with students, asking for what they have done and learned and their experiences in the process were asked. Children gave different names to the procedures and computer parts among themselves. At the end of the time they spent on computer, almost all of them improved themselves in using mouse and keyboard, learned the distinction between click and double clicks and closed the window they wanted. Within a few days on their own they learned tasks such as starting a game and playing, browsing the internet, and opening and closing some MS Office documents, writing via MS Word, and drawing through Paint. During the reseach it has been observed that boys were more willing to play games and make drawings using the Paint program while girls were more eager to search on the internet and write texts using MS Word. Starting education process with young age groups in such a way is so crucial in that students will be able to internalize the value of the education provided by the teachers at the beginning stages of learning process. It has been thought that leaving students alone with educational materials or assignments at the beginning is not only effective in technology education but also in all educational processes and this fact needs further research to yield more results.