Investigating students? attitudes and teachers? opinions about the MEB Vitamin primary learning portal

Computer-assisted learning (CAL) supports student learning. In recent years the CAL has been implemented via internet. The Ministry of National Education (MEB) offers the Vitamin Primary Learning Portal to the use of students and teachers. This web site includes contents for Mathematics, Turkish, Science and Social Studies courses from 4th thru 8th grade. The purpose of this study was to investigate how frequently primary teachers and students use the portal and, if they do not use it, to determine the reasons for not using the portal. It was also within the scope of this study to explore whether teachers? and students? opinions about the web site change by different variables. The research was conducted during the 2009-2010 academic year in Gaziantep and Araban, a province of Gaziantep, with 160 primary school teachers and 688 primary school students. Descriptive survey method was used as the main research design approach. The data was collected by instruments developed by the researcher and the SPPS was used to analyze the data. The findings indicate that female teachers had more positive opinions about the Vitamin Primary Learning Portal than the male teachers and female students also had more positive opinions about the portal. Additionally, the students whose mothers do not use computer at home indicated more positive attitudes. The findings also show that almost half of the teachers and students who participated in this study did not use the Vitamin Primary Learning Portal at all. While the students reported that the lack of computers and Internet at home, not having enough financial resources to pay for the web site fee were the main reasons for not using the portal, the teachers indicated that the physical resources were not available, they did not need to use the portal and the portal was not compatible with the school curricula.