Digital Literacy During COVID-19 Distance Education; Evaluation of Communication-Based Problems in Line With Student Opinions

The COVID-19 pandemic, which started in the People’s Republic of China in late 2019 and spread across the world at the beginning of 2020, has affected the health sector as well as other areas of activity worldwide (United Nations Educational Scientific Cultural Organization[UNESCO], 2020). The field of education has also been one of the areas that has been rapidly and significantly affected by the pandemic. Education and training activities carried out in all countries of the world within a certain plan and system for many years have had to undergo methodical changes in this process, and with the support of developing technology, education, and training activities at all levels from kindergarten to higher education have been moved to the computer environment (Zhong, 2020). In times when technology was not sufficiently advanced, distance education was performed via mail and on demand; however, it has now moved to the internet environment with the support of rapidly developing technology, and teacher–student communication has started to take place through various technological devices, which have become mandatory during this period. Distance education processes, which have been frequently seen and experienced during the pandemic period, require a certain level of access to technology in today’s conditions and the ability to use this technology correctly, known as digital literacy (Lankshear and Knobel, 2015; Metin Taş, 2019). The history of the phenomenon of “distance education,” which refers to situations where the education is carried out by the teacher and the student in separate physical environments (Akdemir, 2011), dates back to the eighteenth century; it is known that the announcement of stenography courses through distance education published in the Boston Gazette in 1728 was the first recorded example of distance education (Kırık, 2014). The distance education process, which began in the form of education by letter, continued with radio, television, teleconferences, cassettes, faxes, video conferences, and finally, the internet (Karagöz, 2019). It is seen that education that started in the computer environment over the internet has now transitioned to mobile devices with the development of mobile communication technologies (Yamamoto and Altun, 2020). The teaching style, which used to be defined only as “teaching by letter,” has now started to be characterized by different names such as “learning at home,” “open education,” and “distance education” (Aşkar and Altun, 2006). In the cases where the time allocated for education is limited, distance education is a teaching approach that allows the education process to continue (Tekedere, 2014). Distance education also helps to realize equal opportunities in education by enabling a standardized but tailored education to a wider audience at a lower cost without time and space restrictions (Telli, 2018). The concept of distance education first appeared in Turkey between 1924 and 1927 and subsequently began to develop (Alkan, 1997). Letter teaching institutions and the open education