The effect of connectivist based personal learning network on primary school students' persuasive writing skills

This study was designed as a sequential explanatory mixed method to determine the effects of connectivist based personal learning network on the 4th grade primary school students' persuasive writing skills and to describe how they make sense of personal learning network. The study group of the research, whose quantitative dimension was designed as experimental and the qualitative dimension as descriptive phenomenology, consisted of 39 students. Criterion sampling was used in the qualitative dimension of the research. Quantitative data were collected through "Persuasive Writing Rubric, qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews. Quantitative data were analyzed using the Mann Whitney U test, qualitative data were analyzed using phenomenological analysis.According to the findings, it was determined that there was a significant difference between the students' post-test persuasive writing scores in favor of the experimental group. In the qualitative dimension of the research consist of the steps of networked persuasive writing as "connection forming, contribution-involvement, pattern recognition, meaning making and reflection". The structural findings show that factors group culture are effective in creating students' personal writer network. The essence of the experience is described as "a constantly changing circle of author nodes that become more visible."