Using Digital Knowledge Maps to Integrate Technology into Pre-Service Teacher Education

Introduction

The integration of technology into university courses to promote collaborative learning and visual literacy can be instigated through differ types of technologies. For science education and science communication, digital knowledge maps offer a technology that enables the visual representation of complex science topics. As the proliferation of Web 2.0 tools such as C-Map increases to promote collaborative, visual learning in tertiary classrooms, it is important to establish how educators use these new technologies to offer students opportunities to gain collaborative and visual literacy skills. In this chapter, action research with an undergraduate cohort is provided to explore the use of digital knowledge mapping with the goal of nurturing visual literacy and collaboration skills while learning the required science content. The integration of new technologies, the impact on teaching and learning and the students’ perceptions of the digital knowledge mapping tool as discussed in this chapter may provide other educators with insights.