Preservice Teachers Learning Science Inquiry: eMentors Using Web 2.0 Learning Tools to Foster Student Inquiry
InSITE 2009
• Volume 9
• 2009
In this descriptive study, the authors examined the online interactions of 45 teams of American International Schools (AIS) middle school students conducting science fair investigations with their distance mentors. Forty-five preservice teachers in a methods of teaching science college course served as “eMentors” using Blackboard™ and the 2.0 Learning Tools (wiki and blog) as their individually assigned teams planned their projects, shared outcomes of their experiments, and analyzed their data. eMentoring, as defined for this project, is the use of “computer conferencing systems to support a mentoring relationship when a face-to-face relationship would be impractical" (O'Neill, Wagner, & Gomez, 1996, p. 39). The Near East South Asia Virtual Science Fair (NVSF) was designed to implement a science fair that encompasses hundreds of students, distance mentors, judges and teachers from eighteen American International Schools crossing geographic and geopolitical zones. Recognizing that today’s middle schoolers are growing up in a dynamic digital environment, students easily master the technologies of chat, instant messaging, blogs, and a “virtual” science fair using Internet technologies and digital tools.
Web 2.0, distance mentoring, preservice teachers, science inquiry
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