Space Science Institute (SSI) is conducting an International Polar Year project in partnership with the Marine Advanced Technology Center (NSF-funded MATE, Monterey, CA) and the Challenger Learning Center of Colorado (CLCC) to produce and disseminate an online simulation of scientific explorations by the latest generation of Antarctic underwater remotely operated vehicles (ROV). The explorations are based on the ROV work of Dr. Stacey Kim of the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories and of Dr. Robert Pappalardo and Dr. Arthur Lane at the Jet Propulsion Lab. Products include the simulation, supporting materials and guides, a web site, and a CD Master. Targeted audiences include: (a) middle-school to college-aged students who participate in national annual underwater ROV competitions, (b) Challenger Learning Centers in Colorado and around the country, and (c) the "science attentive" public who will access the simulation via links to SSI and other web sites. Simulations will follow a game structure and feature Antarctic polar science. Estimated annual usage levels are: for MATE, 2000; for Challenger Centers, 300,000; for the general public, 100,000. The project is positioned to continue well beyond the official end of the International Polar Year
ITR: A Networked, Media-Rich Programming Environment to Enhance Informal Learning and Technological Fluency at Community Technology Centers The MIT Media Laboratory and UCLA propose to develop and study a new networked, media-rich programming environment, designed specifically to enhance the development of technological fluency at after-school centers in economically disadvantaged communities. This new programming environment (to be called Scratch) will be grounded in the practices and social dynamics of Computer Clubhouses, a network of after-school centers where youth (ages 10-18) from low-income communities learn to express themselves with new technologies. We will study how Clubhouse youth (ages 10-18) learn to use Scratch to design and program new types of digital-arts projects, such as sensor-controlled music compositions, special-effects videos created with programmable image-processing filters, robotic puppets with embedded controllers, and animated characters that youth trade wirelessly via handheld devices. Scratch's networking infrastructure, coupled with its multilingual capabilities, will enable youth to share their digital-arts creations with other youth across geographic, language, and cultural boundaries. This research will advance understanding of the effective and innovative design of new technologies to enhance learning in after-school centers and other informal-education settings, and it will broaden opportunities for youth from under-represented groups to become designers and inventors with new technologies. We will iteratively develop our technologies based on ongoing interaction with youth and staff at Computer Clubhouses. The use of Scratch at Computer Clubhouses will serve as a model for other after-school centers in economically-disadvantaged communities, demonstrating how informal-learning settings can support the development of technological fluency, enabling young people to design and program projects that are meaningful to themselves and their communities.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Mitchel ResnickJohn MaedaYasmin Kafai
In the many studies of games and young people's use of them, little has been written about an overall "ecology" of gaming, game design and play—mapping the ways that all the various elements, from coding to social practices to aesthetics, coexist in the game world. This volume looks at games as systems in which young users participate, as gamers, producers, and learners. The Ecology of Games (edited by Rules of Play author Katie Salen) aims to expand upon and add nuance to the debate over the value of games—which so far has been vociferous but overly polemical and surprisingly shallow. Game
This article focuses on understanding how games and immersive participatory simulations, with their focus on doing science, are becoming an emerging type of curricula for supporting science education. It discusses the theoretical frameworks positing that knowing is a contextual and participatory act. The context in which one learns any particular content shapes resultant understandings of that content. Moreover, knowledge and skills in science should be established as an inquiry process and that new technologies and design methodologies can facilitate this process.
In this article, we describe a preliminary study that integrates research on engineering design activities for K-12 students with work on microworlds as learning tools. Here, we extend these bodies of research by exploring whether - and how - authentic recreations of engineering practices can help students develop conceptual understanding of physics. We focus on the design-build-test (DBT) cycle used by professional engineers in simulation-based rapid modeling. In this experiment, middle-school students worked for 10 hr during a single weekend to solve engineering design challenges using
This paper illustrates the intensified engagement that youth are having with digital technologies and introduces a framework for examining digital fluency – the competencies, new representational practices, design sensibilities, ownership, and strategic expertise that a learner gains or demonstrates by using digital tools to gather, design, evaluate, critique, synthesize, and develop digital media artifacts, communication messages, or other electronic expressions. A primary goal of this paper is to identify promising perspectives through which learning is conceptualized, and to share the
In this study our goal is to conduct a "connective ethnography" that focuses on how gaming expertise spreads across a network of youth at an after-school club that simultaneously participates in a multi-player virtual environment (MUVE). We draw on multiple sources of information: observations, interviews, video recordings, online tracking and chat data, and hundreds of hours of play in the virtual environment of Whyville ourselves. By focusing on one particular type of insider knowledge, called teleporting, we traced youth learning in a variety of online and offlien social contexts, both from
While the knowledge economy has reshaped the world, schools lag behind in producing appropriate learning for this social change. Science education needs to prepare students for a future world in which multiple representations are the norm and adults are required to “think like scientists.” Location-based augmented reality games offer an opportunity to create a “post-progressive” pedagogy in which students are not only immersed in authentic scientific inquiry, but also required to perform in adult scientific discourses. This cross-case comparison as a component of a design-based research study
The proposal intends to develop software that, when combined with the OMNI device, produces a virtual touch sensation that allows the blind to "touch" surfaces such as Mars, Earth's Moon, etc. The experience is multimedia as users can get sight, sound, and touch at the same time. The proposal does a solid job of describing a well-constructed and well-designed plan. The collaborative group works to bring together a strong body of STEM material, a highly skilled project team, and a diverse audience to assess the material. The team brought together to implement the proposal is a good one and includes the Institute for Scientific Research, NASA IV and V Independent Verification and Validation, Facility Educator Resource Center, Alderson Broadus College, Davis & Elkins College, and the West Virginia Schools for the Deaf and Blind. Although NASA is a project partner, the reviewers encourage the project proposer to continue building direct NASA funding. For example, a NASA space grant may be a good dissemination vehicle in the future. Reviewers were impressed with the various project elements: the mobile unit, pre- and post- standards based lessons, hypothesis testing with immediate feedback. The evaluation and dissemination plans provide for effective and immediate impact on a statewide and national level. The project provides for broader impact as the multi-media tools will be of assistance to other groups of students with disabilities as well.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Marjorie DarrahPatricia HarrisSharmistha RoyAmy BlakeRebecca Giorcelli
Working in cooperation with the EarthScope education and outreach community, the project is researching, designing, and producing high production-quality interactive video challenges designed to engage and enlighten young people (primary target audience: middle school, ages 10-14) about EarthScope-related science, people, and projects. The interactive challenges are being developed for a generalized medium; the current effort includes testing for the effectiveness with the target audience of a wide range of media (from stand-alone kiosks to hand-held devices). Focus groups and on-site evaluations are being undertaken to measure and enhance the ability of the project to serve its learning goals, to wit: 1) Science: To make large numbers of young people more aware of basic geoscience concepts relevant to EarthScope, presented in an engaging and memorable way; 2) People: To present to young people the wide cross section of diverse jobs and talents within the EarthScope community; and 3) Projects: To raise awareness of the different components of EarthScope and the impact that they will have on local communities. The content to be created incorporates science education standards to enhance and support classroom work, and can become part of a meaningful visitor center, museum, or after-school experi-ence. The investigators are producing a single proof-of-concept EarthScope challenge, with emphasis on front-end testing consisting of focus groups with students in the target population, in order to gather data on possible content and format for the challenges.
Goodman Research Group, Inc. (GRG) conducted front-end evaluation and Alpha testing for the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics of EarthScope Panorama, an interactive Earth science game for middle school youth. The front-end evaluation focused on the prospective content, format, and platform of the game, with the broad goal of assessing four different game prototypes in a population of middle school students. The specific objectives of the evaluation were to document and assess what students already know about EarthScope-related themes and content, what geoscience questions they have
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Marianne E. McPhersonLaura HousemanIrene F GoodmanHarvard-Smithsonian Center for AstrophysicsSmithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
Maine is a rural state with unequal access to computers and information technology. To remedy this, the Maine laptop program supplies iBooks to every seventh and eighth grade student in the state. The goal of EcoScienceWorks is to build on this program and develop, test and disseminate a middle school curriculum featuring computer modeling, simple programming and analysis of GIS data coupled with hands-on field experiences in ecology. The project will develop software, EcoBeaker: Maine Explorer, to stimulate student exploration of information technology by introducing teachers and students to simple computer modeling, applications of simulations in teaching and in science, and GIS data manipulation. This is a three-year, comprehensive project for 25 seventh and eighth grade teachers and their students. Teachers will receive 120 contact hours per year through workshops, summer sessions and classroom visits from environmental scientists. The teachers' classes will field test the EcoScienceWorks curriculum each year. The field tested project will be distributed throughout the Maine laptop program impacting 150 science teachers and 17,000 middle school students. EcoScienceWorks will provide middle school students with an understanding of how IT skills and tools can be used to identify, investigate and model possible solutions to scientific problems. EcoScienceWorks aligns with state and national science learning standards and integrates into the existing middle school ecology curriculum. An outcome of this project will be the spread of a field tested IT curriculum and EcoBeaker: Maine Explorer throughout Maine, with adapted curriculum and software available nationally.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Walter AllanEric KlopferEleanor Steinberg