The Effectiveness of Digital Technologies and Educational Platforms in Developing Social Interaction Skills During Distance Learning: Perspectives of Early Education Teachers and Supervisors in the Sultanate of Oman

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has cast its shadow on various aspects of life, including educational aspects, which forced teachers and learners to follow modern methods of teaching that the parties to the educational process were not accustomed to, which required them to use appropriate educational platforms to ensure the continuity of learning without interruption. Despite this, many Challenges for all learners, including young learners who are in the early education stage. The most prominent of these challenges is the low rate of social interaction they have during online learning. Therefore, the study aimed to identify the effectiveness of digital technologies and educational platforms in developing social interaction skills during distance learning from the perspective of female teachers and supervisors. Early education in the Sultanate of Oman. The study used the descriptive phenomenological approach based on multiple case studies for 24 study participants. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and participants were selected purposively using the snowball strategy. Thematic analysis was performed with the help of the analytical software MAXQDA.

The results of the study found that body language related to the movement of body parts and showing the teacher’s face when explaining was missing for many teachers, and this led to a decrease in the rate of interaction among many young learners. It also revealed the difficulty of implementing group activities in distance learning classes, as the results showed. The study indicated a clear deficiency in the linguistic proficiency, writing and reading skills of children in distance learning compared to in-person learning, and the results also showed that the large numbers in distance learning classes posed a great challenge for many teachers and children in the process of enhancing social interaction between learners.

The study recommended that future studies interested in this matter focus on appropriate strategies and methods for teaching early education children in distance learning environments, and on the importance of conducting more studies similar to this study, from the point of view of parents of early education children about the effectiveness of digital technologies and educational platforms in developing social interaction skills during distance learning.