OPINIOS OF ABANT IZZET BAYSAL UNİVERSITY CEIT STUDENTS ABOUT BLOGS AS INFORMATION SHARING AND WEB PUBLISHING TOOLS

Blog is one of the most commonly used web 2.0 technologies in educational environments. Blog is a web-based publication tool which contains multimedia objects (e.g., graphic animation, video, etc.) as well as various text and interpretations in a chronological order fromnew to old (1). The purpose of this study is to investigate opinions of Abant Izzet Baysal universityComputer Education and Instructional Technology (CEIT) students, who have experiences inblog publication and usage, about blogs as information sharing and web-publishing tools.The data were collected through personnel information form and a questionnaire that coversmultiple and semi-structured questions about blogs. Thirty-three students who have studied inthird and forth grades in the CEIT program participated in the study. The data were analyzedby using descriptive statistics and a qualitative method called category construction.. Thestudy investigated contributions of the blog publishing to the students and advantages anddisadvantages of blog publishing for the students. In addition, the study investigated theopinions of CEIT students about blog usage in their future professions and contributions ofblog usage in teaching-learning environments.