Computer Technologies As Supportive Tools to Enhance Learning in Social Studies

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Computers have become commonplace tools in most Canadian schools. Both this ready availability and the introduction of information and communication learning outcomes as part of the school curriculum have put increased pressure on teachers to become competent and confident users of computer technology. Alberta’s Information and Communication Technology Program of Studies, for example, has three interrelated categories of general learning outcomes for students:

• those intended to develop a foundation of knowledge, skills, and attitudes, including understanding the nature and impact of technology
• those that address specific productivity processes such as composing, organizing, and manipulating information
• those that require the application of these processes through inquiry, decision-making, collaboration, and problem-solving¹

Alberta teachers are mandated to implement these outcomes into their teaching of all core subjects beginning at the primary level. Teachers have primarily been using computers to develop students’ technological skills and competencies, thus addressing the first two outcomes. The third outcome, using technology to support inquiry, decision-making, collaboration, and problem-solving, has been addressed less frequently. This chapter will focus on ideas for implementing this third outcome.

It’s About More Than Simply “Using” Computers

According to the research literature, only a small proportion of social studies teachers are regularly integrating computer technologies in their teaching, and few of these could be regarded as promoting advanced learning using information and communication technologies.² According to Glenn Kleiman, “Many computers in schools, even up-to-date multimedia computers with high-speed Internet access, are not being used in ways that significantly enhance teaching and learning.”³ The main problem seems to be that teachers still tend to use computers as addons to the ways they have traditionally taught. As noted by Howard Gardner, “When the [computers] are plugged in, they are all too often simply used to ‘deliver’ the same old ‘drill-and-kill’ content.”⁴

The key to best use is not the fact that computers are being used, but how they are being used. Maisie McAdoo contends:

The issue of equity now centers not on equality of equipment but on quality of use. The computers are there yes, but what is the real extent of access? How much computer training are teachers getting? And are schools able to raise not just students’ level of technical proficiency but also their level of inquiry, as advanced use of technology demands?⁵

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