Yildiz Technical University held two small-scale meetings on 25 and 26th November 2024 to analyse the effectiveness of Digital Stories modules and online platform on the project's main objectives: improving storytelling and digital storytelling in education, digitalization of education, and preventing early school leaving. The meetings took between 2 hours to 3 hours each, with the same participants (teachers, school principals, graduate students, and parents) attending to both meetings to increase the depth of the discussions.
The first meeting started with Neslihan Karakuş’s introduction and project explanation. She introduced how the project was conducted for almost 20 months, the activities and the general objectives of the project. Participants were intrigued into the project as their professional area was language teaching. They were eager to learn more about the project.
After introducing the project, Büşra Tombak İlhan introduced the modules and the platform to the participants. Two modules were applied interactively with the participants so that they could understand the structure of the teaching modules and their effectiveness. Also, participants were advised to enrol on the platform so that they could be trained for the modules and use the resources in their profession.
In each meeting, the questions prepared by YTU were directed to the participants, and discussion was started. Participants expressed their opinions on each question, giving examples from their experiences as teachers, parents, officials and principals. Two teachers had previous experience in school management, and one teacher expressed their opinions based on their experiences.