USE OF THE INTERNET IN THE TEACHING OF CHEMISTRY IN FINNISH SCHOOLS: A CASE STUDY

Abstract

The Internet provides several services that can be used in the teaching of chemistry. Electronic discussion has been used for some years and now teachers have started to use the Web for planning lessons and for finding teaching materials or exercises. In this study, 17 secondary school pupils used the Web in three different lessons for searching and reviewing information about ozone, and for discussing it. The aim of the first lesson was to search for and evaluate information about ozone and the aim of the second and the third lesson was to discuss it. The pupils' work was analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. During the first lesson the pupils sent 20 messages and during the discussion lessons over 100 messages. The pupils discovered several characteristics of the Web pages independently without any help. They also used the Web as the basis for several discussion topics and, especially in the final web-based discussion lesson, only one irrelevant message was sent. Both the pupils and the teacher enjoyed the lessons. This Web-based learning method was found to be a worthwhile tool in understanding pupils and how they think. The Internet-based method of teaching is flexible. In the future the teacher can give tasks to the pupils and they can complete them in their own time. [Chem. Educ. Res. Pract. Eur.: 2000, 1, 121-128]