Effective Use of ICT in science teaching and learning

ICT and Science Education

QTS Standards:

Q: 17 Know how to use skills in ICT to support their teaching

and wider professional activities

Q: 25 (a) use a range of teaching strategies and resources

including e-learning

Effective Use of ICT in science teaching and learning

History: UK National Grid for Learning(Massive investment in late 1990s)

• Schools infrastructure - £700m

• Library and community infrastructure and content - £200m

• ICT Learning Centres - £400m

• Training for teachers and librarians - £250m

• Content digitisation for the NGfL and libraries - £50m

OVER £2.3 BILLION IN TOTAL UP TO 2004

and £350+m for ‘digital content’

Effective Use of ICT in science teaching and learning

Is continuing investment worthwhile?

Building Schools of the Future (in its first year (2005-6))

- £2.2 billion spent (not all on ICT) yet …

What evidence is there to support continuing use of ICT?

Effective Use of ICT in science teaching and learning

Impact 2 (2002-2004)– Any answers?

75% primary pupils, 90+% secondary pupils have a computer at home

Use in school subjects – never or hardly ever

5 from 13 subjects show a small positive correlation between ICT use and added value of attainment

Use at home seems to correlate to improved attainment in school

There is no consistent relation between the average amount of ICT reported for any subject at a given key stage and its apparent effectiveness in raising standards.

Effective Use of ICT in science teaching and learning

Impact 3 Becta’s Landscape review 2007 – Still no answers?

the evidence on attainment is somewhat inconsistent, although it does appear that, in some contexts, with some pupils, in some disciplines, attainment has been enhanced.

It therefore seems likely that the type of involvement is all-important.

Effective Use of ICT in science teaching and learning

Where do you think that ICT can be used most effectively in science teaching?

• Having a Smartboard for every lab• Having specific computer labs • Having a laptop trolley for the science dept.• Having a class set of iPads or iPods• Having the pupils bring in their Smartphones

Vote now at www.easyvote.co.uk/vote

(the poll name is ICT)

Effective Use of ICT in science teaching and learning

Pedagogy for using ICT effectively in science includes:

• ensuring that use is appropriate and ‘adds value’ to learning activities 

• structuring activity while offering pupils some responsibility, choice and opportunities for active participation

• prompting pupils to think about underlying concepts and relationships; creating time for discussion and reflection

• focusing research tasks and developing skills for finding and critically analysing information

• exploiting the potential of whole class interactive teaching and encouraging pupils to share ideas and findings.

From Science Education and the Role Of ICT: Promise, Problems and Future Directions (Osborne & Hennessy, 2003)

Effective Use of ICT in science teaching and learning

Role of ICT in Science (McFarlane and Sakellariou, 2002)

( i ) ASKQUESTIONS

PREDICT ANDHYPOTHESISE

( ii ) OBSERVE,MEASURE ANDMANIPULATEVARIABLES

( iii ) INTERPRETTHEIR RESULTSAND EVALUATE

SCIENTIFICEVIDENCE

WWWOrganising, presenting

and recording resultse.g. spreadsheets,

data analysis software,-databases

Word- processing inplanning

Word-processing ordesk-top publishing

in presenting aninvestigation or

writing up

Using IT in priorresearch on a topic e.g.

CD-ROM, WWW

Data- logging

HOW SCIENCE WORKS

Effective Use of ICT in science teaching and learning

See Chapter 9. “The Role of ICT” in How Science Works edited by Rob Toplis.

Effective Use of ICT in science teaching and learning

ICT for Data logging

The potential roles of ICT in education

• Flash loggers and probeware

• iPad and iPhone accelerometers

• Roger Frost’s overview and ideas site– http://rogerfrost.com/

Effective Use of ICT in science teaching and learning

ICT for Simulations

• Very popular with science teachers– Atomscope– Multimedia Science School– Boardworks

• What are the “affordances” (what kind of simulation affords what kind of learning) ?

The potential roles of ICT in education

Effective Use of ICT in science teaching and learning

Sites with simulations http://phet.colorado.edu/

http://www.echalk.co.uk/

•http://www.furryelephant.com/

•http://www.acoustics.salford.ac.uk/schools/index1.htm

http://www.explorelearning.com/

•http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/tech/cloning/clickandclone/

• chalk

The potential roles of ICT in education

Effective Use of ICT in science teaching and learning

Simulations are based on models

“A model is a simplified representation of a system, which concentrates attention on specific aspects of the system.”

Ingham and Gilbert (1991)

• Are they all they are made out to be?• See this interview from the Interactive Education Project

(Sutherland et al, 2005)

Effective Use of ICT in science teaching and learning

Data from the Interactive Education Project: Science Teacher B

The potential roles of ICT in education

Interviewer: So that in both your projects as it turned out … because you planned it in the second one but you didn’t plan it in the first one … there were some discussions around the fact that the students’ understanding of the topic was actually in conflict with what was being represented in the simulation.

B. I think that getting students to check incorrect science is actually a good way of helping them learn the correct way. It’s something that I haven’t used an awful lot and I think it’s something I could develop.

They have to be critical. They’re being more active and proactive in their learning, rather then just reacting to what they’re seeing in front of them and automatically grabbing it off the web because it looks pretty. They’re being critical. And teaching critical thinking has got to be a good way forward.

Effective Use of ICT in science teaching and learning

ICT for Creating: e.g. making your own animations and videos

The potential roles of ICT in education

• See the animations from the e-scapes project on the wiki

• See Bioethics Live! On www.beep.ac.uk for guidance

• See http://www.slowmation.com/

Effective Use of ICT in science teaching and learning

ICT for Communicating and Sharing

• SmartBoard resources

– http://exchange.smarttech.com/search.html?subject=Science

• Is it really an Interactive White Board? See

http://dialogueiwb.educ.cam.ac.uk/

• Use for whole class teaching (voting systems)

– http://www.easyvote.co.uk

The potential roles of ICT in education

Effective Use of ICT in science teaching and learning

Communicating and Sharing

• Online discussion between lessons

• See http://www.beep.ac.uk

• Try making podcasts or VoiceThread http://voicethread.com/

The potential roles of ICT in education

Effective Use of ICT in science teaching and learning

Communicating and Sharing

• Wikis• Googledocs etc

The potential roles of ICT in education

Effective Use of ICT in science teaching and learning

ICT Magic Wikia useful Wiki that links to ICT resources on the web eg

The potential roles of ICT in education

http://www.videojug.com/

http://www.storybricks.com/

http://studyjams.scholastic.com/

Effective Use of ICT in science teaching and learning

Other useful ICT web resources

The potential roles of ICT in education

http://www.polleverywhere.com/

Look out for http://www.imvoto.com/an assessment tool using mobile phones

http://www.youtube.com/user/minutephysics

Effective Use of ICT in science teaching and learning

Communicating and Sharing

• Teacher trainee Skyping from school science lab to university tutor

• Online whiteboard to look at ideas together

http://www.twiddla.com/

The potential roles of ICT in education