Abstract
This chapter investigates the FATIH Project in terms of educational administration and management processes. An extended literature review is conducted on how decision makers and administrators contribute the diffusion of FATIH Project and evoke necessary changes to transform education in classroom discourse and pedagogy. The outcomes of FATIH Project is still little understood because of its massive size and long-term feedback. The management processes of FATIH Project needs to be analyzed in the context of planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, controlling, monitoring, reporting, and communication. In order to implement successfully five dimensions of FATIH Project (accessibility, productivity, equality of opportunity, measurability, quality), it is important to investigate administrational and leadership issues, especially when critical decisions are made.
TopBackground
The main scope of the FATIH Project was to increase total quality of Turkish formal education, while, at the same time, trying to provide equal opportunity with success factors. In this sense, MoNE announced five basic components of the FATIH Project: (1) providing hardware and software infrastructure to whole schools; (2) arrangement and planning of educational enriched digital content; (3) effective utilization of innovative technologies for teaching programs; (4) teachers’ in-service training programs; and (5) ensuring the use of conscious, secure, manageable and measurable information technologies (MoNE, 2016).
As argued by Çoklar, Efilti, & Şahin (2019), due to FATIH project, it has become a necessity for teachers to use technology in classrooms rather than a preference. Indeed, administrators mostly discussed the hardware aspect of FATIH project at the beginning. Atabek (2019) indicated that hardware was not only problem of the FATIH project since stakeholders voiced the teacher training, e-content, and management issue of FATIH project as other main obstacles.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Stakeholders: Important stakeholders of FATIH project are YEGITEK General Directorate of Innovation and Education Technologies, Chamber of Education and The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey.
FATIH: FATIH, the conqueror of Constantinople and great sultan of the Ottoman Empire, stands for, in English, Increasing Opportunities and Improving Technology Movement. FATIH is considered as one of the largest educational reform in educational technology projects.
Z-Book: Enriched book compatible with tablets and IWBs.
EBA: Egitim Bilisim Agi/Education Information Network (EIN) provided by MoNE to reinforce the subjects learned with the help of digital documents.
MoNE: Stands for Ministry of National Education. Turkey’s MoNE is responsible to enhance using latest ICT technologies in FATIH. MoNE initiated the FATIH project on November 22, 2010.
IWBs: Interactive whiteboards distributed to schools by MoNE.
VPN: High speed and secure internet (VPN) infrastructure. MoNE provided VPN to schools in order to use EBA, tablets, and IWBs efficiently.