O uso do software de programação App inventor 2 na formação inicial de professores de ciências

Abstract

The possibility of quick and easy access to digital technologies has brought new forms of social relations, work and information gathering. This not only changes everyday actions, but transforms the way of living, desires and thoughts, the reading of reality and, consequently, the way of learning and teaching. Considering these facts, it is necessary that the school connects the teaching methods to technological advances. Regarding the use of technologies, the initial formation of teachers is configured as a research field that needs to be investigated and improved. In this perspective, this paper aims to analyze if the development of mobile educational applications in the programming software App inventor 2, allows to highlight the dimensions of constructionism in the initial formation of science teachers. The constructionist theory proposed by Seymour Papert was the main theoretical support of this study, because besides serving as a basis to understand how the research participants interact with App Inventor 2 software, it also supported the preparation of the research environment and supported the analysis. To achieve this goal, a qualitative research was conducted with 23 students of the Biological Sciences Degree course at the Federal Institute of Paraná (IFPR) - Campus Palmas. To introduce the software to students, an educational product was developed based on Papert's constructionist learning theory, containing a guide that addresses the key functions of App Inventor2 programming software, the detailed construction of a simple calculator, a quiz game and some challenges. After applying the educational product, students built mobile educational applications for teaching physics. For the constitution of the research data, different methodological instruments were used as observations, notes, questionnaires, reports and the applications developed by the students. The research revealed that App inventor 2 facilitates the construction of a constructionist learning environment, enhancing creative, innovative and reflective teaching-learning situations, this way being a tool that stongly contributes in helping the construction of the teacher's technological knowledge in initial training.