Pre-service Teachers’ Perception of Digital Competences and Innovative Teaching Methods

The study was performed on the framework of the European-funded project called Blue Arrow (2020-1-IT-IT02-KA226-HE-095644) that aimed to enable the pre-service teachers to apply Tangible User Interfaces platforms in distance and blended teaching. The paper presents the teachers’ reflection triggered by the tool developed in the project. It is an authoring tool for the building of digital stories where the student needs to use tangible user interfaces and then, physical objects to proceed with the scenes. The stories could be played with a smartphone that recognizes, using the NFC antenna, the tangible objects. The results of this study showed that the teachers involved considered the Blue Arrow authoring tool to be a practical tool for addressing special educational needs. They underlined the characteristics of sensory engagement and dexterity, which sparks a sense of discovery that could motivate students in class. On the other hand, pre-service teachers see the introduction of innovative techniques such as digital storytelling through TUI methodologies as an additional workload.