Ways of Using Internet by Classroom Teachers in Social Studies Course
Özet
The aim of the study is to uncover how classroom teachers use Internet in social studies courses. In the study which was carried out to reveal how classroom teachers use internet in social studies courses a survey model was employed. The data were collected through a questionnaire which included open-ended items. The participants were 180 classroom teachers working at public schools in Afyon province. The data were collected through a survey questionnaire with five open-ended items. The data collected were examined using a descriptive analysis technique. The data were analysed in terms of the frequency of internet use by the participants in social studies courses, for which purposes they used it, frequently used internet-based sources and websites, and their views about the use of Internet for educational purposes. Half of the participants were found to sometimes use internet, while nearly half of them always employed it. They mostly employed internet to prepare the course. They often used it to find lecturing videos. They employed internet both in classroom and outside to find resources. It was found that the participants mostly visited the websites of "Morpa", "Egitimhane" and "Vitamin" in the social studies course. In addition, they reported to visit various website for out of classroom use. For the class they mostly visited "Morpa" and for outside use they mostly visited "Vitamin" and "Egitimhane". The findings showed that the participants sufficiently made use of Internet for social studies courses and that they basically used it for preparing the course content. It was also found that the frequently used internet-based sources were lecture videos, test items, study sheets, slides, documentaries, graphics and other visual materials. The findings also suggested that the participants had necessary skills to make use of Internet for educational purposes. The findings showed that in-servive training activities are needed for teachers to make them informed about the directly related internet-based applications and the problems in using internet in schools should be eliminated.
