Managing the Utilization of Technologies in Adult Education, Training, and Administration: The Case Study of Turkish MoNE

Introduction

Production, teaching/learning and administrative technologies are used to produce output in an educational system efficiently. Production technology can basically be defined as the technologies produced by the student alone or in a group, sometimes with the help of teachers at certain points to learn a technique, especially in technical schools. The teaching or learning technologies enable certain learning gains with the help of technological tools such as a board, pen, presentation device, and computer and so on. To that end, educational administration technology could be a term encompassing the technology used in administrative activities and operations in order to facilitate the administration of the education system, learning environments and thusly the education itself as well as learning and training (Başaran, 1996:127). As can be understood from Başaran, the most comprehensive context is technology that carries three dimensions in an educational organization. The explanation of Başaran could be elaborated on through an illustration. In order to obtain a computer software course certificate at the public education center, for instance, an adult student may be required to produce a software project as a course final assignment. In this project, the student uses software technology (e.g. PHP) to produce software technology based on the knowledge gained, applications referred to or research carried out during the course.

Durnalı, Orakcı and Aktan (2019) stated that “for thousands of years, education and training that manifested itself via a triangle of school-teacher-student has begun to use new, multifaceted, multi-channel alternatives with the use of technologies in the education system” (p. 228). That is, the understanding of learning solely through student and teacher interactions occurring in a physical building has been changing with the integration of technologies into learning processes. Technologies can provide solutions so that students and teachers do not need to get into a physical building called the school anymore.

Educational technology is a process that includes administrative activities in the analysis and finding solutions to the problems in the learning process, in the administration of human and material resources necessary for application development (AECT, 1977:1). Educational technology is the use of multimedia technologies or audiovisual devices as a tool to improve learning and teaching processes (ITEA, 2007:238). Kaya (2006:25) stated the relationship between technology and education as follows: Technology is a tool that enables individuals who have an educator role to reach the target audience in a short period of time through appropriate, coordinated, advanced training materials and help them acquire the desired skills more efficiently.

From another standpoint, according to Bozeman and Spuck (1991:515-16) almost all types of educational organizations can integrate various kinds of computer-based technologies or applications into their organizational structure to execute some administrative activities as desired. Typical administrative data-processing applications in education 1990s are itemized as follows:

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  Financial Applications: Budget systems, accounts receivable-payable, general ledger, purchase orders, salary schedule analysis, negotiations.

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  Student Applications: Student scheduling, class registration, grade reporting and transcripts, daily and summary attendance accounting, student and family demographic information, health records instructional management, test scoring and reporting, tuition and fee statements, class lists.

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  Facilities and Equipment: Space utilization and room assignment, inventories, maintenance scheduling, energy utilization management and control.

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  Personnel Applications: Payroll and check writing, personnel records, faculty and staff assignments, certification records, health records, tax information and tax reports, benefits management (insurance, retirement).

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  Research and Planning: Budget analysis, bus routing, statistical analysis, testing and evaluation, project planning and control, enrollment analysis and projection.

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  Library Systems: Circulation, catalogs, on-line database search, acquisitions-purchasing, inventory.

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  Office Applications: Word processing, filing and database systems, electronic and voice mail, desktop publishing, presentation graphics, spreadsheets.