Developing and Evaluating Educational Innovations for STEAM Education in Rapidly Changing Digital Technology Environments

In this paper, we offer three examples from our research projects on both technological and pedagogical innovations to illustrate the impact of rapid technology changes on research. Members of our research team both developed and used technology applications in their research projects, utilizing design-based research (DBR). During the experiments, we encountered new challenges by the end of the research cycle due to updates in technologies. Although we had an idea of how to redesign the project for the next cycle based on the analyses of data, we noticed that we needed to not only redesign our approaches based on the research results but the changes in technologies were so rapid that materials and pedagogies needed to be altered as well. In our article, we propose an additional aspect to be considered in DBR while researching technology integration or innovative technologies. Moreover, the rapid change in technology raises further challenges to teachers’ professional development and the integration of those innovative technologies in classrooms. We anticipate our work to contribute to the development of technology resources and related pedagogies as well as the refinement of research methodologies in technology environments. Our contributions for the development of technology resources and refinement of research methods in technology-supported learning environments should, among other things, contribute to a less complex and at the same time more sustainable integration of pedagogical innovations into scientific and school practices.