What Role for ICT in Teaching and Learning Chemistry?

Abstract

The rapid advances recently made in ICT, particularly in the Internet, have very important implications for us, as chemical educators. As we begin the 21st century it is almost impossible to imagine what ICT will be like by the end of the century. We can already start to see how these advances are changing our ideas about traditional education, distance education, just-in-time learning and the importance of life-long learning. Advances in ICT will mean an enormous increase in the amount of information available to our students as they study their courses and as they move into the workplace, but this must not be the limit of our expectations. If we wish to provide our students with a quality education in chemistry, we must consider more than mere transmission of information and facts. We must take account of what the educational research tells us about learning; namely that students learn best by: building on pre-existing knowledge; active learning; learning with understanding; and adopting a metacognitive approach Unfortunately the widespread uptake of educational research is much slower than that of technology