State of the art on the use and value of informatic tools (WP1.1)

1. State of the art on the use and value of informatic tools (WP1.1) • Examination of the state of the art on the use and value of informatic tools in five partner countries (France, Italy, Norway, Spain and the UK).

2. State of the art on the use and value of informatic tools (WP1.1) • Study concerned with the provision of and kinds of use of computers and informatic tools in secondary schools and more particularly in science and technology classes. • Report based mainly on existing national or regional data from about 1990, where such data did exist.

3. Report containing results It has been divided into three main parts: • 1.provision of computers in secondary education country by country; availability, location and access, cost of maintenance and replacement of computers • 2.uses of information technology in secondary schools and more particularly in science and technology classes; use of specialised versus generic kinds of software for teaching, contribution of information technology to teaching and learning, and teachers’ competence and training in IT • 3. list of references of important relevant publications of IT in Science education

4. WP1.2 research • Research focused on the use of selected informatic tools in the science classroom. • Aim: to study how teachers transform expected uses of such tools and from this study to conjecture about difficulties and opportunities for the use of the tools in the classroom • Basically two kinds of informatic tools in STTIS: • computational modelling and simulation; and • real time experiments and display systems.

5. Choice of the tools It was informed by several reasons: • important role which they are deemed to play in science education; • many teacher training programs address them; • their educational use has been endorsed by several relevant national and EU initiatives.

6. Variation between partner countries • ·France: simulation tools in teaching optics; and MBL (Micro-computer Based Laboratory) in mechanics • ·Italy: MBL in teaching kinematics and forces • ·Spain: MBL in teaching energy and kinematics • ·Norway: spreadsheets and other simulation tools in teaching motion in force fields; CBL and MBL in teaching thermodynamics, mechanics and electromagnetism • UK: spreadsheets and other modelling tools in teaching science

7. Conduction of case studies • Case studies of teachers using the tools in the science classroom • Teachers selected by their willingness to participate and to attempt to make serious use of the tool.

8. Collection of data Variety of data for each case for principle of triangulation Specific kinds of data were collected by each country: • observation records (researcher notebook) in the classroo • video recording of student activities (if permitted or suited to the situation • recording (audio or video) of teachers' explanations • copies of tasks given to students (worksheets, tests) • copies of written work done by students • interviews with teachers • discussions/interviews with students

9. Crossing national results for WP1.2 • Common conclusions across countries about the use of informatic tools on Science classes • Despite certain obvious national differences, it would be in general rather easy to imagine any one case study as having arisen in a different country • Possible generalisations across these data, which may have useful trans-national policy and training implications.

10. Other results • Despite wide variations in the supply of computers in which Norway, UK and France as compared with Italy and Spain, in all the cases, teachers using informatic tools regularly in teaching Science were the exception rather than the rule. • Individual case studies reflect the teachers’ sense of doing something new, of moving into uncharted territory.

11. Teachers’ views 1 • Many teachers refer to the novelty of the experience for students, whilst often also acknowledging that the use of computers is something students are likely to expect. • Many examples of teachers reflecting on “How I will do it differently another time”.

12. Teachers’ views 2 • Teachers reject kinds of claims and rhetoric often associated with the use of informatic tools as: • machine-based-laboratory work can develop physical insight and analytical ability; • simulation can reveal the essence of a process; • computational modelling provides new insights into the working of physical theory, etc.

13. Comments • Practical realities can impinge seriously on goals; for example the decisions made by programmers about the precision with which to display results, the sensitivity of sensors or the way conceptual entities are represented in simulations, the arbitrary use of dollar signs in Excel addresses, etc. • Teachers clearly conscious of the extent to which their work with informatic tools is or is not a good fit to what they believe they ought to be doing, to what they are accustomed to doing, and to what they feel obliged to do.

14. Briefly • Informatic tools are not fully naturalised within the secondary school system in Science classes..

15. The newness or novelty of the use of informatic tools is widely given a value of its own. • Teachers expect it • to motivate students, • to provide variety, • to simply attract attention, • to be “what the students want nowadays”.