TEACHERS' PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES AND REPRESENTATIONS ABOUT DIGITAL TABLETS

Since 2010, digital tablets have been progressively introduced in learning practices, especially in secondary schools. The introduction of these devices in schools seems to the result of a technology-oriented positions rather than a pedagogical-oriented view. Moreover, social sciences works have focused more on the effects of digital tablets on learners' performances rather than understanding the teacher's point of view. Following this direction, some studies show that teachers value the flexibility that digital tablets provide in pedagogical activities and the collaboration they increase between teachers.

Nevertheless, other aspects need to be investigated, such as:
i) how do digital tablets take part in teachers' pedagogical resource design activity?
ii) what are teachers' social representations about this device, its acceptability and their pedagogical role through it?

Our research goal is to describe teachers' uses, appropriation and management methods of digital tablets in secondary school. Our research hypothesis is that digital tablet change how teachers design their learning material and how they act during the classroom with learners. In fact, the teachers want to use digital tablets to perform their work they are asked to activate different skills, as the TPACK model shows (Koehler, Mishra & Yahya, 2007):
i) didactics, concerning a specific discipline;
ii) technique, concerning the several software used to realize pedagogical material and the digital constraints;
iii) pedagogical design, in order to achieve the best match between the structure and the presentation of pedagogical contents and students' learning skills.

In our proposal we describe a study concerning a group of five teachers in a French secondary school. We have observed their teaching practices in classroom assisted by digital tablets, and we have also conducted three focus groups and five individual interviews. Results of these subjective data show that digital tablet is an asset in motivating learners to produce a work that can be showed their classmates, and to engage learners in a pedagogical activity. In our presentation, we will describe other outcomes and we will discuss their impact on teachers' skills training and how technology is approached by teachers.

References:
[1] Koehler, M.J., Mishra P., & Yahya, K. (2007). Tracing the development of teacher knowledge in a design seminar: Integrating content, pedagogy and technology. Computers & Education, 49, pp. 740–762.