Incorporating digital technologies into science classes: Two case studies from the field

© eContent Management Pty Ltd. As the rate of digital technology development accelerates, so too do the challenges for teachers to maintain their digital technology skills and to effectively apply these skills to benefit student learning (Phelps, Graham, & Watts, 2011). The impact of digital technologies on teaching and learning practices must be recognised and further understanding of their complex nature is required (Hennessy, Deaney, & Ruthven, 2005; Metiri Group, 2006). This paper reports on case studies from two larger studies with an aim to add to this understanding. The first case study is of students' use of digital video production to record and represent their science learning. It reports on the adaptation of the writing-to-learn in science model (Prain & Hand, 1996) to video-to-learn in science. This adaptation of a mature learning model to a new setting, was noted by Wang and Hannafin (2005) and reflects the common classroom situation in which teachers must modify and adapt their practices to accommodate new technology (Hennessy et al., 2005; Hobbs, 2006). The second case study focuses on students' learning about and with the specialised scientific representations commonly used in chemistry. It reports on the classroom strategies and resources used to help chemistry students learn about the meaning and application of multiple static and dynamic diagrammatic digital representations and describes some of the challenges and resulting outcomes for the teacher and students