The Use of Edmodo in Creating an Online Learning Community of Practice for Learning to Teach Science

OpenAlex · İngilizce

This study aimed to create an online community of practice by creating a virtual classroom in the Edmodo application and ascertain the opinions of pre-service primary teachers about the effects of Edmodo on their learning to teach science and availability of Edmodo. The research used a case study, which is one method of descriptive research. During the implementation process, pre-service primary teachers used Edmodo to share activities they had designed that centred on the scientific concepts taught in primary science education programmes. They also shared their diary entries that outlined their experiences and views after they had practised their activities in a real classroom. 58 pre-service primary teachers participated in the study. The author developed a questionnaire and it included one closed-ended and six open-ended questions; the questionnaire was used as the data collection tool. The pre-service primary teachers used Edmodo for 12 weeks. Descriptive and content analysis methods were used to analyse the data obtained from the study. The results obtained from the data analysis showed that pre-service primary teachers generally had positive views about the use of Edmodo in teacher education programmes. Most pre-service primary teachers stated that Edmodo provides the possibility of sharing knowledge, experiences and views. However, some pre-service teachers stated that Edmodo has some limitations; for example, the fact that it requires the user to have internet access. As a result, it can be said that Edmodo can be used to create an online community of practice in teacher education programmes.