21st century learning: Integration of web 2. 0 tools in Turkish adult language classrooms

Language classes have begun to welcome technological devices with their benefits as a result of the constantly improving technologies. With those technologies, many different materials serving for language teaching have been developed in order to be used in the classrooms. To make use of these contemporary advances, new materials are being developed day by day. In such a context, language learners have also initiated to use those materials. In that sense, the present study seeks to find out the ways to foster 21st century skills with W2.0 tools. For the present study, 33 adult English language learners, who were at the preparatory class of their department, were trained for two terms in order to see the effects of W2.0 tools on 21st century skills. The training program is in line with Bruner's 5Es instructional frame which aims to incorporate Web 2.0 (W2.0) tool as a subset of formal classroom learning (Kivunja, 2015). The program also enables participants to develop and present their own projects in the class. These projects, which were the outcomes of a collaborative activity, were recorded and shared through using a website as a main platform. While the students were sharing the presentations, their classmates also contributed to the website that was designed like a blog via writing comments which made them think in a critical and creative way. As the data collection tools, peer assessment collaboration rubric (Intel Teach Program, 2010), creativity and critical thinking rubric (based on KPM, 2010, cited in Kuong et al. 2012), rubric for communication skills (Schreiber et al., 2012), attitudes towards the use of computers questionnaire (Connolly et al., 2009), Critical Thinking Questionnaire (Bedir, 2016) were used. Furthermore, the presentations that students did in the class were recorded, and they were evaluated by two other independent instructors regarding the 21st century skills development. As another data collection tool, minute papers, semi structured interviews and in class observations were used in order to obtain qualitative data. According to the results, using W2.0 tools presents a viable option to foster 21st century skills except for critical thinking skill for the case of language learners within Bruner's 5Es framework.