Development of students’ professional skills through media technologies

Abstract

The concept of generation is used to describe a group of people who were born in the same years and experienced similar social events, troubles and obligations under the conditions of the same age. Generational formation is generally classified according to age and sociological phenomena. However, today, factors such as technology, differentiating social values, changing career perceptions, education and working conditions reveal the necessity of evaluating the classification according to different dimensions. The field of professional competence is an important issue all over the world. Especially with the technology that has developed and continues to develop in recent years, the qualifications of teachers in this field are important. We live in the age of technology. The aim of this study is to determine the opinions of teacher candidates studying at the Faculty of Education about the ‘Media Literacy’ course. For this purpose, the case study method, one of the qualitative research approaches, was used. 71 students studying in the Faculty of Education at the university constituted the study group of the research. Semi-structured interview questions prepared by the researchers were used. In the analysis of data collection tools, the qualitative data analysis programme NVivo 8.0 was used and the results were interpreted with content analysis. When the results obtained from the research were examined, it was concluded that the media literacy course should be given in earlier periods. The most preferred media tools were television and the Internet. It has been concluded that media literacy provides human skills and teaching in the teaching process. Considering the results of this research, the importance of the media literacy course in terms of professional development at the university was emphasised. Keywords: Student, media literacy, technology, educational technology;