Digital Technologies in Science Education: What’s Real, What’s Hype

1. Digital Technologies in Science
Education:
What’s Real, What’s Hype
Eric Demoncheaux, PhD

2. “It is well established in many
countries that it is school science
education, not science, that
many learners are rejecting”
Michael J Reiss
Learning for a Better World: Futures in Science
Education
In book: The Future in Learning Science: What’s in it
for the Learner?

3. REAL AND POWERFUL
REASONS FOR SCIENCE
EDUCATION
• Creating deep and meaningful
learning experiences.
• Creating future problem solvers.
• Science challenges build resilience
and confidence by working through
the unknown.

4. CHALLENGES
• Overcoming students' overwhelming
concern for their image, social
status, after school activities, etc.
• Getting students to apply what they
have learnt.
• Finding a way to get students to
apply what they learn, and to
recognize how to apply the lessons.

5. PRECONCEPTIONS AND
MISCONCEPTIONS
• Science has a kind of built-in
curiosity.
• Tackling the misconceptions and
preconceptions leads to student self-
correction.
• Teachers need to install in students
the desire to learn more.

6. ‘YOU CAN LEAD A HORSE TO WATER,
BUT YOU CAN’T MAKE IT DRINK’
Create a sense of purpose, of direction and future
before you teach.
You have to have a class of students that have some
willingness to learn, some desire to achieve,
however slight.

7. TEACH STUDENTS TO THINK BEYOND
THE TEXT
"Teaching
Science" means
getting students
to "think“.
Memorization is
necessary to
learn the
fundamentals.
To really learn
science, and to
master it,
requires the
development of
critical thinking
skills.

8. MEMORISATION OF FACTS
DON’T CONCENTRATE
ON MEMORIZING FACTS.
TEACH STUDENTS HOW
TO USE THOSE FACTS.

9. SCIENCE
NEVER
STANDS STILL
School science has to be open to new
ways of learning
Many think that new technologies
transforming learning is hype
Emerging technologies are making
their way into the classrooms and the
jury is still out on how effective they
are.

10. “ We still educate our
students based on
agricultural timetable, in an
industrial setting, yet
telling students and
teachers they live in a
digital age. ”
Sofoklis Sotiriou & Franz Bogner
Inspiring Science Education:
Designing the Science Classroom of
the Future. Journal of Computational
and Theoretical Nanoscience 4(11-
12):3304-3309 (2011)
Click here to access Open Discovery
Space’s portal

11. AVOIDING
TECHNOLOGY IS
IMPOSSIBLE
• iPads/tablets/Chromebooks in
the classroom allow us to
move away from the 'sage on
the stage' and can enhance
the learning for everyone.
• Yet, so many apps are 'nice to
have', but not 'must have’.

12. CAN
TECHNOLOGY
HELP?
Many schools lack
adequate facilities
for lab work.
Science could be
“done” online with
the help of pre-
recorded real
experiments and
interactive data
collection.
Online labs allow to
"flip" the science
lab.
Online labs may
prove to be cheaper
than real labs too.

13. YOU CAN'T LOOK
EVERYTHING UP
You can't put information to
good use if you don’t know how.
Students need to be able to
explain things clearly, completely
and accurately to others, in
speech and on paper.

14. WHAT IS
REAL?
• New technologies will
transform how science
is learnt.
• Students are gaining
greater control over
their own learning.

15. CONVERGENCE
• Different technologies such as
educational technology,
nanotechnology, cognitivie
science, artificial intelligence
are evolving towards similar
goals.
• Examples of converging online
learning platforms include
Seneca Learning, YACAPACA,
Go-Lab, or Smart Science
Education.

16. ONE SIZE WON’T FIT
ALL
• Solve local problems by creatively using
technologies.
• Make all stake holders an actor and
author of their own learning.
• Create opportunities for students’
interests and experiences.
• Listen to students’ voices on teaching
and learning.

17. SEEK OUT
PROGRAMS THAT
DON’T ALWAYS
ASK EASY
QUESTIONS
• Educational technology
offers challenges
students have the
chance to solve.
• This is a surefire way
to help develop both
creative and critical
thinking.
• When given the chance
to ‘do science’, many
students give up too
easily.

18. PERSISTENCE AND EDUCATIONAL
TECHNOLOGY
• Educational Technology, through gaming, can allow students to
keep at it and learn to become more persistent.
• Educational Gaming can help communicate complex concepts
and provides opportunities for deeper learning too.

19. UNPACKING THE
POTENTIAL OF
EDUCATIONAL GAMING
• ‘Gaming to learn’ has been around for a
long time.
• Games can help develop both non-
cognitive and cognitive skills.
• Far from dumbing down, games are hard.
• The systems of points, badges, rewards
and leaderboards can be easily replicated
in an educational context.

20. ‘When scientists are about to carry out a
new experiment, which may take them
anywhere between a day to a year, they
manage their time so that they can regulate
the rate that information is gathered
I think that games are also very good tools
for doing this. The player can control how
long they play the game, how hard the
difficulty is. They can play the game alone or
discuss the game with others. It’s a very
dynamic process and it allows information to
be received and reused during later game
play. Due to individual scores and ‘levels’
academic progress and transfer of
knowledge can also be mapped and
evaluated.
Furthermore, games have the power to
change perceptions and introduce important
vocabulary which can be used through
Higher Education.’
Dr Carla Brown, Founder of Game Doctor