Activity Title: Using ICT when investigating scientifically

About:

How ICT can facilitate science investigations.

Video 1: How information, communication and technology skills can be developed

Captions:

Music

Teacher: My advice for teachers who want to use ICT to help Science

my advice would be probably to use it.

It is there, it is a tool and it is just so powerful that you can

make things so much easier for yourself if you're prepared to embrace

and step out of your comfort zone

particularly if you've never used it before.

But this being my first year in MyScience I've never even used

a Wikispace before and that was the fundamental component of our

investigations this year so our students could collaborate

not only with themselves after hours but they could also collaborate

with themselves in hours, they could collaborate with their mentors

after hours and within hours of school and they could collaborate with me

as the teacher after hours and they could collaborate with other people

that I gave permission to collaborate with them.

Another great thing about the Wikispace was that kids can create

the same document, the same report together without having

several different word documents scattered around the place.

So, it made the organisation much, much more controllable

and you know manageable as a teacher and I suppose,

the final probably the most important thing is that they're constantly

building up so everything they add to the Wikispace builds to

the final product, it's not something over there, it's not putting

it together, it's just this big product that slowly gets bigger and bigger

and bigger until it's finished.

There's none of this rush at the end getting it finished

it's always just that little bit being added to it.

But I suppose there's a lot of times that the program where a lot of

the stuff isn't out there for you and so you've got to be prepared to

make it and do it yourself in some ways, not to say your completely alone

but there are some things that I found in particular that just

weren't working for me and the Wikispace was a result of such a problem

I needed more communication with all of my students,

I needed it to be easier and that's why

I thought Wikispace was just an answer.

So, there are times where it's going to be difficult for any new teacher

but stick it out and you'll get there in the end.

Parent: Some other key aspects of the MyScience program that really

motivated Caitlyn was their use of technology

in presenting the scientific report.

They were really keen using that and using their Wikispaces was fantastic,

they were all talking about it, they were working as groups.

At home as I said before you know

editing and making sure things were right.

Mr Fisk really got them enthusiastic at the beginning by doing

the experiments and showing them the TV show so that aspect

also improved the whole experience, the MyScience experience for them

rather than just do an experiment, get it over with,

it's been a huge, whole term experience for them.

Student: Our Wiki had all our information on it.

We used a computer, we had to use a computer to get on it

and we didn't have to write with pencils.

On the Wiki some of our results were on it and there were questions

on it and we had to answer them.

Notes:

MyScience provides an authentic context for the development of ICT skills.