TIC and Sustentability: obstacles and possibilities for environmental educators

Abstract

This paper diagnoses in depth the use of ICT by environmental educators, who face the dilemma of either incorporating them into their teachi ng or ignoring them given that they prefer immersion in the natural environment. This research started with a number of proposals seeking to know more about this group’s experience of the use of ICT, the difficulties and obstacles they
face, their attitudes and appreciation, advantages and disadvantages and their specific integration in classroom programmi ng. Initially, an international virtual community was created, with a total of 232 environmental educators from twelve Latin American countries who responded to a “on line” survey with closed and open items. The categories for analysis were generated from the study objectives, and the sub-categories in the open responses were formulated in an inductive-deductive way. The results show the teachers have a high regard for
ICT, but in reality, their use is less positive, since there is a low level of training and they face technical, organizational and economic difficulties or even doubt their usefulness as a replacement for contact with the natural environment. This makes the use of ICT not as common as is desirable, nor are the many possibilities of Web 2.0 exploited.