Infusion of ICT into Adult Education in Turkey

Abstract

This paper investigates the role of information and communication technology (ICT) in facilitating and supporting informal learning in adults. Although the potential of ICT for stimulating formal learning has been widely discussed, the area of adult education remains under-researched. This paper reports how adult educators are using ICT. Based on data from a survey of 276 respondents we maintain the range of adult educators’ ICT skills and how ICT both facilitates and suppresses their teaching environment. The findings show that there is an increasing demand for a variety of learning opportunities for adult educators. Adult educators are very willing to use ICT and by this way they expect to improve educational outcomes and to increase participation in all forms of adult education Adult educators welcome ICT widely as having the potential to increase access to learning. However, they pay special attention to the infrastructure, support services, cost, time or space as main barriers.