Developing a user guide to integrating new technologies in science teaching and learning: teachers’ and pupils’ perceptions of their affordances

Abstract

This paper reports outcomes of a project in which five teachers developed a web‐based user guide to integrating new technologies in secondary science teaching. The guide aimed to support the initial education of trainee teachers, and the professional development of mentors, in working with, and understanding the affordances of, new technologies. In developing the guide, each teacher researched, trialled in their lessons, and wrote about, a different technology, namely wikis, digital video, podcasts, personal digital assistants, and games consoles. By collecting data alongside this process, this paper examines teachers’ and pupils’ perceptions of the affordances of such technologies in the science classroom. The authors undertook individual interviews with teachers and focus group interviews with students. Pupils’ and teachers’ perceptions clustered around four main themes: construction and social construction of learning, differentiation, assessment, and motivation and engagement.

Keywords:

• new technologies
• science
• teacher education
• professional development
• emerging technologies

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the pupils, teachers, parents and senior management teams at each of the participating schools. We would particularly like to thank the teachers, who gave their time and enthusiasm so readily. We would also like to thank the Training and Development Agency for Schools’ Partnership Development schools scheme, which provided the funding for developing the user guide.