Abstract:

Digital media affect the development of all areas of human life, including the field of education. For many years, efforts have been made to incorporate digital media in actual face-to-face teaching. Considering the development of digitalization of the teaching process, a new branch of education has developed – multimedia didactics, which deals with didactic shaping and design of media for independent learning. The use of digital media in the teaching process introduces three significant changes – how students learn, what students need to learn, and why students learn (Kearney, 2013). Tinio (2002) points out that the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in teaching promotes constructivist teaching and enables active, collaborative, integrative, and evaluative learning. Active learning refers to students' engagement in the learning process which involves more than simply listening to the lecturer. Digital media can be integrated into the learning and teaching process in a variety of ways. The subject Science and Social Studies (SSS) in the Republic of Croatia is an interdisciplinary subject in the first educational cycle, that integrates scientific knowledge of the natural and social sciences, humanities, and information technology. The interdisciplinary character of this subject offers a lot of possibilities for the use of digital technologies in teaching. This paper analyzes the phenomena of digital media and their implementation into the Science and Social Studies teaching in primary schools. It presents the results of research aimed at determining the teachers` opinion on the use of digital media in teaching this school subject, and at examining the possibilities, frequency, and methods of their use in everyday teaching practice. The research was conducted on a sample of 123 primary school teachers from the Republic of Croatia. The obtained results show that primary school teachers show positive attitudes towards the appliance of digital media in Science and Social studies teaching. They believe that digital media have a positive effect on students' motivation, their achievements, the development of more complex forms of thinking, the development of competencies, and the individualization of learning. Teachers also recognize that digital media enable various forms of learning, such as game-based learning, project and collaborative learning, learning by research, and problem-solving. The results of this research showed that there is a connection between the use of digital media and teachers’ qualification level and length of service. The majority of teachers have a possibility to use at least one digital media with Internet access and they also claim that they often use digital media during their teaching. However, their use of digital media mainly serves as a support to traditional forms of teaching, instead of as a teaching tool for organizing a modern teaching process aimed at active student learning.

Keywords:

Digital natives, digital media, information and communication technologies, Science and Social Studies teaching.