Abstract:

The adoption of Mobile and Wireless Technologies (MWT), such as smartphones, tablets and their Apps has created new possibilities for teaching and learning Chemistry. Within the sphere of Chemistry Education, the MWT have made it possible to develop interactive activities, experimentation by means of simulations, visualization and the “manipulation” of representations of chemical structures, access to chemical data tables, and other possibilities that broaden the understanding of this science. However, sometimes, matters of infrastructure, restriction of access to smartphones and tablets, as well as the incompatibility between the operational systems that are installed in these devices, may limit the adoption of MWT in education. Hoping to overcome some of these limitations by implementing teaching and learning strategies in the context of “BYOD – Bring Your Own Device”, the need emerges to investigate the multiplatform Apps that enable working from this perspective. Thus, the objective of this study was to identify, select and categorize multiplatform Apps for teaching and learning Chemistry. For this, a search for Apps was performed in the virtual stores ‘Play Store’ (Android operational system”) and ‘App Store’ (iOS operational system). The data obtained from each of the virtual stores were compared, selecting only the free Apps that were available in both virtual stores. Forty-five (45) multiplatform Apps, with a free download and access to content were identified, selected and analyzed. The analysis of the 45 Apps allowed us to classify them into categories as to their functionality (games, instruction material, visualization of chemical structures, simulation, database and periodical table) and also to identify the “field of chemistry” for which they are appropriate. The detailing of these Apps, including the categories and “fields of chemistry” identified will be presented in the final article. Based on these results it was possible to identify the main free multiplatform Apps that can contribute to the Chemistry teaching and learning processes from the perspective of BYOD.

Acknowledgment: IFRS, CNPq/PIBITI

Keywords:

Chemistry, Apps, multiplatform.