Digital artifacts as mediator tools of cognitive activities of students: possibilities for new learning scenarios

Abstract

This paper aimed to investigate to what extent the digital artifacts are consolidated as mediator tools of cognitive activities and what can it provide to young student in their formative process from intentional educational practices. This paper follows the qualitative pattern, in the exploratory modality and with characteristics of an intervention research. As a methodology, we developed a didactic experience with the use of digital artifacts centered on mediation, whose target group consisted of 36 first-year students of the Pedagogy course of a public institution in Parana. Data were collected through an online questionnaire and through participant observation and student testimonials transcribed in a logbook. The results revealed that the digital artifacts became mediators of the mental and operational actions as far as it was used to live new and different experiences of elaboration and re-elaboration of the thought, which resulted in a simultaneity of actions and thinking. In relation to what it provided to the young students, we emphasize the collaborative, procedural, real and interactive work, in addition to the joint construction of meanings, to the autonomy, to the learning management and to the breakdown of the linear format of learning, which were consolidated in the construction of new scenarios.