Computer-Mediated Communication and Science Teacher Training: Two Constructivist Examples

The education of science teachers necessarily involves around the use of computer technologies. Acadia University, a laptop institution, offers a unique setting where students are immersed in the critique of pedagogical applications of computers. The current trend employ constructivist approaches in provides a backdrop for this article, which offers a discussion of two interactive communication strategies namely asynchronous electronic discussion and negotiative concept mapping. The impacts of these approaches have been addressed with students through surveys and qualitative interviews. ********** Education and Computers: What's Missing As the trend continues place in the hands of every student in North American schools, there is an accompanying assumption (Moll. 1997) that this will necessarily enhance science education (Thomas, 2001). Bigum (1998) has suggested that blind faith in technological progress has not served schools well (p. 22). Science teachers have sometimes been characterized as being unabatedly enthusiastic about the possibilities for with computers (Roth, Woszczyna, & Smith, 1996, p. 995). This technoromantic (Benyon & Mackay, 1989) or technicist (Bryson & deCastell, 1998) perspective has recently been met with a call assume a middle ground of so-called technorealism where the rhetoric and reality of is brought into focus (Walker & White, 2002). While there is a continued insistence that computer would have a greater impact on schools if teachers were just taught how employ them in classrooms, among others, Bennet (2002) posits that this simply is not the case. Lack of teacher however, is a myth. In 2000 the U.S. Department of Education issued a study in which half of all teachers reported that college and graduate work had prepared them use technology (p. 622). So what is the answer? Perhaps there is but what of the quality and nature of that training. Of the eight keys successful integration recommended by Bitner and Bitner (2002). training in the basics is number two. Unfortunately I suspect many teacher institutes stop at just that, leaving students with a bag of tools but few experiences of integration. But what is meant by integration? Postman (1993) suggested that: we need consider about the computer has nothing do with its efficiency as a tool. We need know in what ways it is altering our conception of learning (p. 19). Van den Akker, Keursten and Plomp (1992) concurred with this when they say teachers need to revise their beliefs regarding how students learn. It would appear that the best way accomplish this may be by immersing teachers in teaching models where they are forced conceptualise how the and their objectives get married (Bitner & Bitner, 2002). Computer-led classrooms that promote the teacher as a facilitator of curriculum and problem solver have certainly been suggested (Bennett, 2002) and investigated (MacKinnon, 2001). What do we know of the nature of that may help inform the overlap of pedagogy and technology? Constructivism Herrington and Standen (2000) made a case that with must move from what Reeves (1993) referred as instructivist approaches, where the learner is a passive recipient of instruction (p. 4) constructivist environments, where knowledge building is a learner--centered process. While there is plethora of writings on constructivism (Brooks & Brooks, 1993) and its relationship (Greening, 1998; Merrill, 1991; Perkins, 1991; Brown, 1992; Salomon & Almog, 1998), Chou (2001), based on the work of Bonk and Cunningham (1998). has very aptly distinguished the more popular definitions of constructivism. Constructivism theorists who draw from Piaget put more emphasis on individual constructions of knowledge as a result of interaction with the physical environments. …

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