Abstract:

Current technology is ubiquitous, as it is present in our lives. If it provided a quantum leap that mainly changed the way we communicate and relate, why has it not boosted the same leap in the teaching and learning process? In this article, we highlight the role of both the smartphone and the tablet for having a set of diverse applications, which allow us:
(1) to see, hear, interact, feel
(2) create, recreate, produce, build and share,
(3) to peek at the world in any space and time frame.

These skills are important in education. It is part of the IFITIC Project which aims to rethink the educational practice with ICT in the initial training of future teachers in order to promote methodological renewal in Pre-school Education and the 1st and 2nd Cycles of Basic Education. The study aims to understand the integration of the respective technological instruments by students of initial teacher training. We opted for an exploratory study, mainly quantitative, in which we applied a questionnaire survey that involved about 13 teacher-trainees. The analysis of results shows that the majority of respondents hold these technological instruments. However, the way they use a smartphone is different in their professional life, as an intern teacher. The same does not happen with the tablet, as this feature is always used more for reading, writing, watching and listening, in addition to promoting moments of play and access to the social network. Most do not conceive of the school without these resources and claim that stimulate pupils for their use. They justify the use of the devices mainly in order to undertake research, take photos, record, play and do work. Moreover, they identified a set of digital tools for communication, comprehension, exercise, real-time interaction, creation / production, augmented reality, which they mainly use, but also revealed approaches such as gamification, webquest and collaboration-based learning, which they introduced within their practices.

Keywords:

Mobile technology, pedagogical renewal, initial teacher training.