Abstract

This study aims to show the present conditions about the usage of cloud computing in the department of Computer Education and Instructional Technology (CEIT) amongst teacher trainees in School of Necatibey Education, Balikesir University, Turkey. In this study, a questionnaire with open-ended questions was used.  17 CEIT teacher trainees participated in the study. The aim of this qualitative study was to determine trends about cloud technology. The cloud technology under study included “Dropbox”, “SpiderOak”, “Google Drive”, “IDrive”, “pCloud”, “OpenDrive”, “Bitcasa”, “OneDrive”, “Tresorit”, “Box” and “Yandex.Disk. The CEIT teacher trainees’ opinions about cloud storage and its purposes; their opinions about types of cloud storage and the level of importance of cloud storage were investigated. The reliability and validity were taken.  The advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing were examined. The study found that CEIT teacher trainees’ had used cloud storages such as Dropbox and Google Drive previously and they continue to use primarily Dropbox, followed by Google Drive and OneDrive respectively.

Key words: Cloud computing technology, Dropbox, Google drive, choices of cloud storage, computer education and instructional technology (CEIT)