Abstract:

Nowadays, young people are very interested in the new technologies related to the information and communication (ICT). It happens in every field and context because the use of ICT has opened expectations -both individuals or in group, for pleasure or training- that some years ago were unthinkable. This fact favours their use as a teaching resource that motivates our pupils to the learning.

Based on this, we wondered how we can make the most of our pupil´s motivation towards the ICT to use it as a teaching resource.

Due to our personal interest towards the improvement of the educational process not oriented to results but learning, we have considered the use of a educational software that allows us to develop the following key competencies:
(a) competence in knowledge of and interaction with the physical world
(b) competence in processing information and use of ICT, related to some basic contents about energy, types of energy and fonts of energy, at the second year of obligatory secondary education.

The developed experience intends to prove the influence that a digital teaching resource, as “Hot Potatoes”, can have in the learning-teaching process, making easier the comprehension of contents related to the energy. This resource allows the students to work significantly to build their own knowledge and to acquire the required competencies.

This work is based in a few number of activities that allows pupils to use this software as a game, understanding that its finality is to work some basic curricular contents in a formal way in this educative stage.

The use of this kind of teaching resources implies that the teacher has to design activities structured to motivate the students and to strengthen contents. It also allows teachers to make a reflection about their own teaching process that allows them to evaluate not only the pupils’ learning, but the developed process of design and teaching planning.

Related to the pupil, the development of experiences and activities different from the pencil and paper ones and based on ICT supposes a learning reinforcement for the worked contents.

We can conclude that, although the studied contents were new for the students, the obtained results show us that the use of these activities based on ICT results pleasant, enjoyable and gratifying for the pupils and this fact favours the motivation towards the study and learning of the worked contents.

Keywords:

Secondary School, Educational Software, Energy, Motivation, Learning.