Development of Digital Educational Resources for Education for Sustainable Development: the Courseware Sere

The lack of courseware for primary sciences’ teaching and learning, conceived according to Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) approach [1], was the reason that determined the organisation of a multidisciplinary team with different competences (on Science Education, Educational Technology and Design) for the development of the Courseware Sere “The Human Being and natural resources”. Adjusting some principles of software’s development, as far as User Centred Design (UCD) is concerned [2], as well as ESD approach [3] and science education perspectives [4], the multidisciplinary team collaboratively developed the digital educational resource, which integrated several software typologies within the educational activities. Taking into account the UCD and usability premises, the team looked to find answers for two research questions: “What are the positive and/or negative perceptions of external evaluators concerning the Courseware Sere?” and “What are the potentials and constraints that emerged from the methodology adopted in the development of Courseware Sere?”. A qualitative method, of a descriptive and exploratory nature, was adopted in order to develop and evaluate the technical and didactical quality of Courseware Sere (question 1), as well as, the potential and/or constraints of the methodology adopted in its development (question 2). The development and research study was divided in two research phases, selecting for each one of them, different techniques and instruments to collect and, consequently, analyze the data. Fallowing its technical and didactical evaluation, this educational resource was used for an in service primary teachers training program. With the financial support of British Petroleum, it was possible to include, at this teacher training program, primary teachers all over the country. A full presentation of the development process of this digital educational resource will be done throughout this paper, as well as the presentation of the results emerging from the in service primary teachers training program.