The role of ICT in science
The role of ICT in science
Acknowledging that science and ICT have an important part to play in different aspects of the individual child’s development, let us consider specifically the issue of how ICT can contribute to early years science.
Frost (1995: 9) offers an important point in relation to the use of ICT in science:
When teachers started using the technology in class, other advantages became apparent. When their pupils became fluent in using sensors, the computer offered a new insight into science: they gained something that helped them to understand and encouraged them to explore. When the children used databases and spreadsheets they didn’t just draw graphs, they could go onto interpret them. And when they worked together with a word processor, they started talking with zeal, not the usual gossip, but about science.
Frost continues and suggests that ICT offers very special tools, which he calls ‘the tools of the mind’. This is an apt phrase because where ICT applications in science are used appropriately they should support the teacher in challenging children to ‘engage brain’, by drawing upon personal scientific knowledge and understanding as well as everyday experiences and skills.
When children use any ICT application in science, and ‘engage brain’, the adult should be encouraging children to participate in making a range of decisions such as what, when and how to use it.
The extent to which children will be able to work independently will depend upon the depth of their experience, personal confidence and dis- position to using ICT in science. With very young children there will be a partnership with those adults working with individuals and groups. The role of the adult in the partnership is to scaffold and enable children to use their increasing competence to become more and more independent, in both the ICT and the science. It would be naïve to assume that this transi- tion to becoming expert occurs solely within early years, indeed for most children, the transition will not be completed until they enter secondary schooling and maybe not until later in life.
Frost’s ‘tools of the mind’ encompasses many different aspects of work- ing in science. One of the most important advantages of ICT is the access to data that some applications offer, allowing children to collect data automatically and immediately show the results. With very young children this is one of the most important advantages of ICT in science. Children can have access to immediate readouts and the computer can create a graph based on the data. The teacher can then challenge children to think about the data and to talk about the patterns, trends, oddities and draw conclusions.
SCIENCE AND ICT
As part of their scientific investigations, children gather information by observing and describing objects, animals and plants. They make collec- tions, ask questions, talk about and describe the objects in front of them. They sort their collections into groups under simple criteria, as they look for and identify similarities and differences. They begin to classify scien- tifically but at the same time they are developing vital information han- dling skills, a prerequisite to much work within ICT. Sorting objects is a valuable, concrete experience for young children and, as an extension, these children can use simple computer programs that are designed to group pictures of objects by dragging them around the screen using the mouse. As they sort and group objects, children are beginning to develop skills of classification and the use of keywords. Sorting activities can be extended to producing a binary or classification tree. Children learn to pose questions that require a yes or no answer as they identify and under- stand similarities and differences. This activity is a process of questioning that encourages children to ask scientific questions using correct scientific vocabulary.