The overall objective of this planning project was to examine the potential effectiveness of the Signing Science Pictionary (SSP) in increasing the ability of parents and their deaf and hard of hearing children to engage in informal science learning. To achieve this objective, research and development included four goals. 1) Design several SSP-based activities to help family members engage in informal science learning. 2) Examine the potential effectiveness of the SSP in increasing family member’s signed science vocabulary. 3) Find out about the potential effectiveness of the SSP in
This volume explores how technology-supported learning environments can incorporate physical activity and interactive experiences in formal and informal education. It presents cutting-edge research and design work on a new generation of "body-centric" technologies such as wearable body sensors, GPS tracking devices, interactive display surfaces, video game controller devices, and humanlike avatars. Contributors discuss how and why each of these technologies can be used in service of learning within K-12 classrooms and at home, in museums and online. Citing examples of empirical evidence and
This article describes a transmedia learning experience for early school-aged children. The experience represented an effort to transition a primarily television-based series to a primarily web-based series. Children watched new animation, completed online activities designed to promote STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) exploration, and participated in (and reported on) offline activities that required them to investigate real-world phenomena. Children were expected to visit the website every weekday, for four weeks, as part of the experience. A single group pre-post test
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Concord Evaluation GroupJessica AndrewsChristine Paulsen
This is the first report in a series on game “impact types.” We begin with the problem. Our field needs a better way to talk about impact — a deeper conversation that is more fundamentally inclusive and multi-disciplinary, yet still evidence-based. This report is a first step, revealing the basic fragmentation and documenting its harm. Not just beginners, but our best journals and public awards can inadvertently overlook full categories of impact, and disagree on what evidence looks like. Creativity is too easily and unhealthily pitted against impact design. Even the language of “double-blind
NOVA Labs (www.pbs.org/nova/labs) is a web-based platform designed to engage teens and educators with authentic data, scientific games, tools, and opportunities to communicate with and assist working scientists. The present study sought to investigate the outcomes achieved by users of the fourth NOVA Labs platform developed: RNA Lab. The RNA Lab includes several key components of the previous labs (e.g., videos, educator guides, etc.). The major difference is that the RNA Lab “research challenge” is a game component. The NOVA Education team's overarching goals for teens using the Lab focused
Click! Urban Adventure Game was a mixed-reality role-playing game where girls worked in teams to solve a fictional mystery based on a real-world issue, using technology and science to conduct their investigation. In this article we describe the design of the experience and present evidence that the game increased girls’ confidence, interest, and knowledge of science and technology and helped to build a community of support and conversation-centred learning for girls. This example has implications for the design of informal learning experiences that bridge interest and identity with science and
This document is a “think piece” about why and how informal science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education institutions could be placing amusing, novel experiences in people’s paths to create memorable STEM experiences embedded in their everyday lives. The report focuses on what we learned about creating interactive STEM exhibits in public spaces outside of a science center. That said, the content can inform hands-on learning experiences on other topics, as well, within the limits outlined.
This paper describes a platform for sharing programmable media on the web called ScratchR. As the backbone of an on-line community of creative learners, ScratchR will give members access to an audience and inspirational ideas from each other. ScratchR seeks to support different states of participation: from passive consumption to active creation. This platform is being evaluated with a group of middle-school students and a larger community of beta testers.
The focus of this paper is to turn our attention to the arts as an understudied area within the computer-supported collaborative learning community and examine how studying the learning of arts and programming can open new avenues of research. We document, describe, and analyze urban youths’ media arts practices within the context of the design studio, particularly by focusing on how collaboration, computation, and creativity play out within this context. We utilize a mixed methods design that draws upon three approaches: (1) participant observations; (2) media arts object analyses; and (3)
Rockman et al (REA), in partnership with Marti Louw and the University of Pittsburgh Center for Learning in Out-of-School Environments (UPCLOSE), conducted a summative evaluation in Fall 2012-Spring 2013 of a temporary museum exhibition at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History (CMNH) in Pittsburgh, PA called, Stories in the Rock. The exhibition highlighted CMNH researchers’ documentation of ancient petroglyph sites in Saudi Arabia using GigaPan technology to capture high-resolution, zoomable images of the rock art. The exhibition centers around an activity called the Explorable Image, a
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University of Pittsburgh Center for Learning in Out-of-School EnvironmentsCamellia Sanford-Dolly
In 2010, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration awarded the Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM) an Environmental Literacy Grant for Science Education. Over the course of four years, SMM’s Planet Earth Decision Theater project developed new Science on a Sphere (SOS) programming, films and other scientific visualizations all intended to increase public understanding of the major role that humanity now plays in creating large-scale global change. Evaluation Questions 1. Are the components interesting and enjoyable? 2. Are visitors aware of the components’ main messages? 3. Do visitors
Based on work in media studies, new literacy studies, applied linguistics, the arts and empirical research on the experiences of urban youths’ informal media arts practices we articulate a new vision for media education in the digital age that encompasses new genres, convergence, media mixes, and participation. We first outline the history of how students’ creative production has been used to meet the goals of media educators and highlight new trends in media education that are instructive for creative production. Our goal is to introduce and situate the new ways in which youth are