Purposes of social networks usage of science student teachers and primary students and their utilization in educational context

Social Networks which have benefits like education, interaction, active participation, information and source sharing, thinking critically; used by students for several purposes. In many ways these applications that will make many undeniable contributions to education have great importance in science education. Therefore, firstly the awareness of pre-service teachers who are expected to use these tools at their courses, and primary school students who will be their students, should be primarily detected. In this survey the purposes of the candidate science teachers? and their primary school students? usages of social networks and their educational usages and whether these usages depend on the gender, class level, the frequency of use and spent time at social networks variables or not are aimed to be detected. The study was carried out with Pre-service Science Education Teachers (N=800) at two state universities and primary school students (N=765) in center of the Trabzon in the 2010-2011 academic year. The data gathered were analyzed by percent, frequency, mean, standard deviation, independent t-test and one-way analysis of variance. It has been found that, students principally use social networks for social interaction, followed by school works and entertainment, respectively. It has been determined that there is a statistically significant difference in the students usage of social networks depending on variables such as gender, class level, frequency of use and spent time at social networks. Students, who spend their time mostly on Facebook, use this media chiefly for communication not for education. At each class level, students? awareness for the usage of these tools in education is low. Also, the increase of online time at social networks causes to use these tools for wasting their time, not for education. The students at each level should be told to increase the usage of the tools for educational purposes and to lessen the usage of it for entertainment.