Information and communication technology skills for new millenium students: European countries and ICT experts opinions in Turkey

ICT lesson policies have been changed six times from 1997 to 2013. There was no any consistent politics during several years. While ICT literacy policies have been changed, there are no any documents about taking opinions of ICT teachers and formatters who are in the center of the ICT literacy process. However according to the system approach, the relations of the constituent parts of the system should be taken into account as a holistic approach. In every model of the instructional design it is compulsory to take the partners' opinions in order to define the problem and needs. In this study, opinions of the ICT partners took in order to create the ICT politics on the base of a model approach. Moreover, policies and practices about ICT lessons in European countries are examined according to the several variables. Then they are discussed in comparison with the ICT practices and policies of Turkey. Data is collected by the questionnaire namely "Information Technology Literacy Skills to be Acquired for New Millenium Students". Questionnaire involves two sections. Cronbach alpha is 0,93. Factor analysis for the two sections reveals that sections have just one component. First component means that ICT lessons are necessity for new millennium students and the second one state that there is no need for ICT lessons for new millennium students. Relational sequential model is used in the research. Research is conducted with subject matter teacher and ICT experts. Data from ICT experts is collected online. ICT experts are convenience sampling. Subject matter teachers are stratified sampling. Data is collected from the 20 schools in Beşiktaş. 341 ICT experts are attended to the study. Whether separate ICT lesson is occurred or not is discussed in terms of their school status, seniority, graduation department and working area. 315 of them agree with the idea of separate ICT lesson. Then their opinions about the structure of the lesson are taken. The idea of ICT literacy acquisition to the new millennium students in the subject matter lessons is possible or not is investigated by both ICT experts and subject matter teachers. Furthermore, 32 European countries are examined in terms of their ICT practices and policies. They are discussed in terms of level of welfare in comparison with Turkey. As a result of the whole data, how ICT literacy is acquired to the new millennium students is discussed and suggestion is generated for Turkey. According to the result of the research, ICT experts strongly agree with the idea of separate ICT lessons for new millennium students in Turkey. There is no statistically significant difference in terms of school status, seniority, graduation department and working area. Both ICT experts and subject matter teachers do not agree with the idea of ICT literacy acquisition to the new millennium students in the branch lessons. ICT experts suggest two hours, compulsory ICT lesson in the 3rd and 4th grade during the primary school and two hours, compulsory ICT lesson in the whole grades during the secondary school. 15 countries has separate ICT lessons just in their secondary school, 8 of them have both primary and secondary level and 9 of them do not have ICT lesson in both grades. ICT lesson in secondary school level is the most preferred practice in 32 European countries. There is a relationship between the level of welfare and having ICT lesson. The countries which do not have separate ICT lesson in both grades have high level of welfare. The countries which have low level of welfare like Turkey have ICT lesson in both grade or just have in secondary grade are the outcome of this research