Browsing by Author "Kontto, Merita"

This study observes high school geography teachers habits and attitudes towards the use of e-materials and electronic teaching. Transition to electronic teaching methods has been very quick and teachers have very contradictory feelings about it. Teachers job is very hectic and versatile, and electronic methods bring even more challenges to it. Adjusting new teaching methods requires teachers to have time and skills which they may not have enough. Teachers job description changes and becomes enlarged when teachers need tools and support from the employer, policymakers, colleagues and schoolbook publishers. High school geography teachers were inquired about what kind of e-material free of charge they use, how often they use it, what is good e-material like and what kind of challenges they connect to the use. As expected, the teachers find e-materials very useful but there are also many challenges. Furthermore the quick transition to electronic teaching and the new electronic baccalaureate in high school causes very exciting but also unsecure atmosphere. An electronic survey reached 624 Finnish high school geography teachers and after two weeks there was 150 answers from them. Those answers help to bring out teachers habits and attitudes and the challenges considering e-materials. Many teachers also proposed some improvements and wishes for the future. At the end of the study there is also a list of mostly used and useful e-materials. As expected, teachers see that e-materials are truly important and useful in teaching but they also need support to use them. Many teachers already use the help of colleagues for example by sharing materials in the social media but unfortunately it doesn t reach all the teachers who are interested in those materials. Teachers hope for more updating education for themselves, more links in teachers materials of the schoolbooks, more help from the colleagues and a proper material bank on the Internet. Each teacher is doing now very much work by searching and preparing e-material for their lessons even though it would be much more effective if all teachers would share their good and useful findings with others. Yet there isn t one good and practical website which would collect all e-material in one place.