| Excerpt | Analysis |
| How do you think your students perceive the use of technology in a science classroom?
I feel like when I used Padlet specifically, there is a lot more engagement. I found that these days you just ask students “what do you think about this?” or “what do you think the answer is?”, there’s always only two three students who actually participate and voice out their answers and say what they think. But if it’s something that allows them to be anonymous, and not show that they made a mistake or don’t know about something, then they will participate more. It gets rid of the whole burden of being embarrassed about not knowing something. |
Technology’s helpful in getting students to participate and amalgamate data. A student response system like padlet can be used to highlight specific responses (e.g., misconceptions, model responses, interesting ideas) to support discussion.
Questions like “what do you think about this?” and “what do you think the answer is?” seem like they dominate in a teacher-oriented class. As well, they appear like weaker activities that are done during whole-class instruction. With technology and different forms of assessment, students have alternate methods to express their understanding. There’s also comfort in low stakes formative assessment. |
| What challenges have you faced when using technology in the classroom?
I find that students get a faster idea of how to use technology because they have more experience with using multiple different types of technology. It comes with their age group or generation, but they get distracted easily. They try to multitask a lot which doesn’t work all the time. |
Technology can present distractions. Our students have greater access to technology and this can make them more familiar with basic technical skills. However, technology and phones are often designed for entertainment and to keep users engaged. Multitasking, devices, and the given tasks all compete for student attention. |
| How do you deal with these challenges?
With younger groups, I try to make sure they know when they’re allowed to use their devices and when they shouldn’t be. I try to also let them know about, like, oh it’s better if you write certain things down physically than to type everything out because you’re engaging more with the content. |
Co-regulating the use of devices by setting up norms and expectations can help students recognize responsible/appropriate and irresponsible/inappropriate use of technology.
Connecting distractions and technology use to how people learn is important. Highlighting cognitivist principles can emphasize how learning works, how attention works, and how our behaviours influence these. |
| How have your students used technology in the classroom?
If one student doesn’t write notes very well and there’s one student that does take notes very well, they’ll do the Google Docs thing, where they’ll share/combine everyone’s notes into one Google Doc and just share it with the class. So there’s a collaborative element that I’ve been seeing more of. |
Students can use technology in novel and unexpected ways. This collaborative note-taking is an interesting way of filling in gaps and resource pooling.
Connecting with our students about their technological preferences, uses, and experiences can give us insight into how they tend to learn. |
| Re: use of technology in the classroom
I just find that there are so many [chemicals] that are banned now. You just can’t do it in the classroom anymore so a lot of the time you have to resort to showing it from the internet. I’m trying to do certain experiments, and then I find out the chemicals are banned and then I’m like, well what’s my alternative? |
When real experiences become limited, one way to keep them is through a digital archive. Although this is a bit artificial and we still want our students to develop the requisite skills connected to a hands-on experience, our assessment tasks need to change. |