Science educators seeking to enhance traditional science instructional methods, and thus,
enhance student science literacy, need to be aware that technological advancements can provide
them with opportunities to do this. However, as the present study demonstrated, the adoption and
implementation of technology for collaborative science activities needs to be done so with
caution. By having students complete collaborative activities online via asynchronous discussion
rather than in a traditional classroom format, cues such as tone of voice and natural language can
be lost; thus, resulting in ambiguity ofmeaning and lack of clear instruction (Daft&Lengel, 1986;Dennis & Kinney, 1998). Students may then fail to understand complex concepts. Without the
immediacy of feedback, as often occurs in the asynchronous online environment, students can
actually reinforce each other’s misconceptions that are based on observations and prior
experiences that do not align with science concepts. Educators choosing to adopt online
technologies for collaboration in the science classroomneed to do so judiciously and ensure that a
high level of teaching presence and immediacy is present.Middle school students may be unable
to serve as more knowledgeable peers (Vygotsky, 1986) and serve to reinforce misconceptions
rather than enhance each other’s learning.