Teachers’ self-efficacy for using ICT to promote their teaching (the example of YouTube and Facebook)

Leading team

Dr. Ron Blonder

Postdocs and students

Naama Benny

Sohair Sakhnini

Shelley Rap

R&D team

Ziva Bar-Dov

Summary

Web 2.0 is a term referring to the second generation of internet services. It includes websites and applications that provide a technological platform for users’ content: creating and sharing uploaded content by the users themselves. Web 2.0 provides a high level of activity and promotes cooperation among its users. This contributes to creating new social connections, sharing human experiences, and creating new knowledge. As social networks, YouTube and Facebook are part of Web 2.0 and allow different types of uses for teaching and learning. Throughout the twentieth century, movies on chemistry have been used in many ways in chemistry education. YouTube made these videos available for use. However, in order to incorporate videos into chemistry lessons, teachers need to be trained, not only in the technical aspects of using videos in the classroom, but also in choosing appropriate methods and strategies that will facilitate the incorporation of videos into the learning process. Moreover, they should understand the benefits of using video media and believe in their own abilities to use videos. In other words, teachers need to have sufficient technological pedagogic content knowledge (TPACK) and technological teaching self-efficacy. We studied the change in the skills, teachers’ TPACK, and self-efficacy beliefs of chemistry teachers regarding video editing and using YouTube videos in high-school chemistry lessons, as a result of a professional development program that focused on editing YouTube videos and the accompanying teaching pedagogy (Blonder, Jonatan, et al., 2013).

Related articles of Ron Blonder’s Group

http://www.weizmann.ac.il/st/blonder/