Online communication courses: The developments in the area of communication education

Abstract

E-learning as a form of distance education has become one of the essential movements in all levels of education. Almost all of the higher education institutions in Turkey as well as the rest of the world have been trying to offer e-learning opportunities for their students and the staff. Anadolu University in Turkey has a web portal, which is called Anadolu University Internet Supported Education System, which serves to support academicians' classes via the online system. The academicians generally give their courses in traditional way but they have begun to use this online system to support their courses. Computer and computer-supported technologies are new issues in the instructional communication field. When we look at the course list for the 2008 spring semester on the portal, we see 8 (eight) communication courses, which are given by Communication Sciences Faculty teachers. If we want to develop and deliver successful e-learning programs we should need to know teachers' behaviours and attitudes before developing an e-learning system. The aim of this research is to find out the academicians' teaching method when they use the online support system.