SYNCHRONIC DISTANCE EDUCATION FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF A HANDICAPPED PERSON

Nowadays knowledge and communication technologies are developing rapidly and changing people's lives. With the help of the developing technologies, people can access knowledge independent of time and place and distance education technologies offer handicapped students a range of opportunities in order that they may access a better level of education. By defining perceptions related to the distance education of a physically handicapped student engaged in a program of synchrony distance education at Karadeniz Technical University to throw a fresh light on this topic. Due to the nature research problem, phenomenology, one of qualitative research patterns, was used in this study which has a qualitative character. In this study, because it was intended to present a handicapped person's thoughts related to distance education, semi-structured interview, one of qualitative data collection techniques was thought to be the most appropriate data collection instrument. The sampling of the research included the handicapped student receiving courses by synchrony distance education in Karadeniz Technical University, two friends of the student following the same course and the assistant in the course environment. The interviews were recorded with a video camera, a transcript of each of the interviews was prepared and the data was analyzed scientifically. In the light of the research findings, it was decided that the synchrony distance education environment helped handicapped person feel more secure and relaxed and for his handicap not to be noticed by others. In addition, without the lecturers' feeling of compassion, it presented handicapped student with an opportunity to prove himself. Also, because the courses classes? were recorded in this environment, students could review the content of the class in their own time and this process could be repeated, thus the students could learn at their own speed.