Cowos: A Model of Collective Work Situations to Support Modelling and Simulation Based Approaches of
This paper describes an operational model of collective work situations. This model is rooted in the CHAT theory. It allows creating multi-agent simulations where the agents behaviour is defined in terms that make salient organization issues, and allows building learning situations that focus on making students consider explicitly these issues.
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The US Geological Survey Volcano Hazards Program website presents its objectives "to advance the scientific understanding of volcanic processes and to lessen the harmful impacts of volcanic activity." The public can explore information on volcano monitoring, warning schemes, and emergency planning. Students and educators can find out about the types, effects, location, and history of volcano hazards. The website offers recent online volcano reports and maps, volcano factsheets, videos, and a pho
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The report "presents a comprehensive assessment of the Agency's annual performance toward the strategic goals and objectives in the Agency's September 2000 Strategic Plan... and... focuses on environmental accomplishments and benefits to the public resulting from implementation of Agency programs." Visitors can download or read online performance results in the agency's efforts for clean air and water, preventing pollution, waste management, reducing global and cross border risks, and providing
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This Topic in Depth explores the science behind predicting the weather. First, the United States Search and Rescue Task Force describe the basic tools and knowledge used to create weather forecasts (1). Students can find concise, clear explanations of weather, fronts and air masses, high and low pressure, precipitation, and water vapor and humidity as well. By performing the activities presented in the second website, fourth grade students can learn about weather instruments and data collection
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Ask ERIC, or the Educational Resources Information Center, is a federally funded project within the Department of Education that hopes to "provide education information to teachers, librarians, counselors, administrators, parents, and anyone interested in education throughout the United States and the world." This portion of the site provides lesson plans in twenty-three science subjects, geared for students from K-12. Clearly and attractively presented, each lesson plan gives a suggested grade
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This USGS website provides daily and periodic sediment data mainly for hydrologists and geomorphologists. The database includes station metadata, drainage basin area, geographic parameters, data anomalies, streamflow discharge, suspended-sediment discharge, and more. Users can find maps of average concentration of suspended sediment and of the many gaging stations located all around the United States. After obtaining the data from this website, researchers can analyze the data using their own an
When less is sometimes more: Optimal learning conditions are required for schema acquisition from mu
While it is usually claimed that multiple examples for the illustration of problem categories are a necessary prerequisite for schema acquisition, there is a lack of conclusive empirical evidence supporting this claim. Moreover, there are findings indicating that carefully designed one-example conditions may allow for profitable processes of example comparison as well. In line with this reasoning, we present an experiment that builds up on a series of studies conducted by Quilici and Mayer (1
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The latest Federal Funds for Research and Development publication was recently released from the National Science Foundation. The report presents data on federal funds for research and development by character of work, performer of research and development, geographic location, field of science for research, and more. The document is offered in both HTML and Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) formats.
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The Tsunami Research Center at the University of Southern California "is actively involved with all aspects of tsunami research; inundation field surveys, numerical and analytical modeling, and hazard assessment, mitigation and planning." The website supplies interactive maps and chilling images of the destruction caused by the December 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean. Visitors can find out the latest tsunami news and research. Students and educators can view animations of seismic activity, lan
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Chuck's Robotics Notebook "serves as a journal and knowledge repository for the aspiring roboticist" and includes sections on circuits, projects, and controllers. A section on Complete Robots describes some of the robots he has built and includes some photos. A "bibliography of sorts" provides his favorite books and articles "so that you can build a 'Mechatronic' library of your own." The second website, Hobby Engineering, is more of a clearinghouse for robotics supplies, but also provided is so
Regulative support during inquiry learning with
simulations and modeling
Many factors impact learning; the environment and resources available, the domain, how much prior-knowledge a student has, and how well they make use of their metacognitive skills, all of these factors impact new knowledge creation. The series of studies described in this dissertation focuses on the latter; i.e. the metacognitive skillfulness of students. Known collectively as self-regulation, planning, monitoring, and evaluation, when applied appropriately will enhance learning. Students who m
A Neural Approach for Modeling the Inference of Awareness in Computer-Supported Collaboration
Individuals interacting in a computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment produce a variety of information elements during their participation; these information elements usually have a complex structure and semantics, which make it rather difficult to find out the behavioral attitudes and profiles of the users involved. This work provides a model that can be used to discover awareness information lying underneath multi-user interaction. This information is initially captured in
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This outstanding website on Native Conifers of North America was created by Nearctica, an organization devoted to connecting the internet public to high quality natural sciences websites. The site offers The Complete Conifers of North America whereby site visitors can access Genera and Species from a checklist or by using a nicely organized key system based on various conifer characteristics. Species pages include beautiful illustrations, photos, and simple distribution maps as well as informati
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The European Neutron Scattering Association (ENSA) produced this website to present its goals to support the European neutron scattering community, promote and plan neutron scattering activities, and develop instruments. The website discusses the Association's structure and its connections to national organizations. Researchers can download past reports and conference talks and can find links to European publications. Students and educators can find short biographies of a few scientists involved
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Southern Florida contains some of the most unique landscape and biology in the US. The US Geological Society and Southern Florida Information Access (SOFIA) maintains the South Florida Virtual Tour in hopes of sharing the beauty of the area and promoting its protection. Visitors can tour sixteen areas (e.g., the Everglades and the Florida Keys); view images (still and 360 degree), illustrations, and maps; and read simple but informative descriptions about the landscape and biota. The site is eas
Extending the Scope of Asynchronous Collaboration: a Matter of Being Autonomous and Self-sufficient
Asynchronous collaborative applications and systems have to deal with complexities associated with interaction nature, idiosyncrasy of groups and technical and administrative issues. Inclusion of requirements derived from them is costly (in time, resources and economically). Existing solutions addresses asynchronous collaboration via simplification of requirements and by using centralized models. In this paper we present LaCOLLA, a fully decentralized infrastructure for building collaborative ap
ToxMystery Lesson Plan 2: Case Book: Catch That Hazard!!!
This lesson plan is a follow-up lesson to the introductory ToxMystery activity lesson. It is a paper-based activity that incorporates the character “Toxie” from the computer game activity into a detectives’ “Case Book”. Students will work with the packet “Catch That Hazard!!!”
They will follow the clues provided, and work with the ToxMystery computer game activity to fill in the clues. The chemicals to be investigated are introduced on the cover of the Case Book activity packet.
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Presented by the private educational service Columbia Education Center (CEC), the Science Lesson Plans page gives teachers access to several hundred categorized lesson plans. The plans are divided into K-5, 6-8, and 9-12 grade levels, and cover all areas of science. Giving teachers a good resource of quality information, each no-frills link brings up a single page description of the lesson plan that includes an overview, purpose, objective, materials needed, and additional resources information.
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The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) created this website to act as a central source for disseminating information about climate change. Users can find out the latest news about global warming, CO2 emissions, government efforts, and more. The website features the major initiatives taken on by UNEP including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In order to understand the climate change problems, the website has supplied users with many maps and graphs as well as information k
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Elsevier Engineering Information has made the U.S. National Technical Information Service (NTIS) database through the Engineering Village 2. The NTIS database includes unclassified reports from U.S. and international government agencies. Through Engineering Village 2, an interdisciplinary engineering database, subscribers can now search three engineering databases simultaneously, accessing over 9-million records referencing 5,000 engineering journals and conference materials dating from 1884 and
