APPS AND THE STUDY OF THE PERIODIC TABLE

Smartphones and tablets take on different functionalities by installing Apps, enabling the use of these mobile devices for different educational activities. In the case of teaching and learning Chemistry, especially, Apps can be found that cover specific topics in this science, and there are a great number of Apps available dealing with the periodic table.

The study of the periodic table is essential to understand Chemistry and its phenomena. Aiming to adopt Apps to teach and learn the Periodic Table, the objectives of the present work were to select Apps on the periodic table and to identify their potentials involving the study of the periodic table.

In order to achieve the objectives of this study, Apps were searched for in the “Play Store” and “App Store” virtual stores, using the key word “periodic table”, selecting only the free Apps. The initial result was to identify 164 Apps.

Considering the practice of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) for teaching and learning the periodic table, only the Apps available in both virtual stores surveyed were selected and analyzed, a total of 13 Apps.

The data obtained by analyzing these 13 Apps enabled grouping them into categories that describe their different applications related to the study of the period table. These categories are: classification of the elements in the periodic table; historical aspects of the chemical elements and their applications; periodic properties; study of the levels of energy and layer of valence of the elements; physical properties of the elements; and formulas of ionic and molecular compounds. In order to teach and learn each of these categories related to the periodic table, a suggestion of Apps to be adopted is presented, describing their main characteristics.