Computer-Supported Collaborative Conceptual Change

This paper reports an empirical research on conceptual change in children Firstly an investigation of how 73 primary school students, aged 11 and 12 years old build concepts of heat and temperature' Based on Children s typical misconceptions we designed and implemented 4 web based inter school collaborative learning activities with necessary tools and systems Thus enable children to distinguish between these two concepts and promote conceptual changes After systematic interventions discourse analysis and T-test analysis we found that the planned interventions helped children in distinguish the two concepts effectively thereby building scientific conceptions on their own The study also shows that ICT can be important resources to promote students' conceptual change