To Unlock the Learning Value of Wireless Mobile Devices, Understand Coupling
Handheld computers will become an increasingly compelling choice of technology for K-12 classrooms because they will enable a transition from occasional, supplemental use to frequent, integral use [1, 2]. Early evaluations suggest teachers and students respond to handhelds favorably [3]. At the same time, these devices will become communication enabled, through wireless technologies such as infrared beaming or radio-based local area networks. The clarity with which we can see the potential has l
Transformative communication as a cultural tool for guiding inquiry science
Inquiry-based science instruction offers great promise as a means of actively engaging students in authentic scientific problem solving, including consideration of research design issues. At the same time, inquiry introduces some difficulties. In particular, familiar "cultural tools" for classroom discourse, such as Initiation-Reply-Evaluation sequences, are no longer appropriate because they are premised on known answers and teacher-driven activity. To help support productive open-ended science
Changing How and What Children Learn in School with Computer-Based Technologies
Schools today face ever-increasing demands in their attempts to ensure that students are well equipped to enter the workforce and navigate a complex world. Research indicates that computer technology can help support learning, and that it is especially useful in developing the higher-order skills of critical thinking, analysis, and scientific inquiry. But the mere presence of computers in the classroom does not ensure their effective use. Some computer applications have been shown to be more suc
Addressing the Challenges of Inquiry-Based Learning Through Technology and Curriculum Design
Inquiry experiences can provide valuable opportunities for students to improve their understanding of both science content and scientific practices. However, the implementation of inquiry learning in classrooms presents a number of significant challenges. We have been exploring these challenges through a program of research on the use of scientific visualization technologies to support inquiry-based learning in the geosciences. In this article, we describe 5 significant challenges to implementin
The greenhouse effect visualizer: a tool for the science classroom
The Greenhouse Effect Visualizer (GEV) is designed to help students visualize data sets related to the earth's energy balance. This work was inspired by the benefits scientific visualization have provided to scientists in discovering patterns and presenting the results of their work to broad communities. The hope is that scientific visualization can provide equal assistance to students trying to learn science. The philosophy underlying this approach links learning with practice. Hence, students
Hypermedia as a means for learning and for thinking about learning
This paper is about the design and realization of an experimentation with a hypermedial system, IPER-3, facing the three ‘classical’ problems in the history of mathematics (trisection of the angle, quadrature of the circle, duplication of the cube) and some issues which have developed around them. The aim of the work is to study the opportunities provided by hypermedial systems in dealing with topics of interest for the training of teachers and/or for class work, exploiting the possibility o
‘Hole-In-The-Wall’ Computer Kiosks Foster Mathematics Achievement - A comparative study
Earlier work at unsupervised playground computer kiosks in rural India, popularly called 'hole-in-the-wall', showed that children exposed to these kiosks learn to use computers on their own and that they are able to clear school examinations in computer science, without any classroom teaching for it. Extending this, our recent research work examines the possible impact on attainments in other curricular subjects, arising from self-directed use of these kiosks. This paper investigates the impact
The Internetworked School: A Policy for the Future
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Augmenting the Discourse of Learning with Computer-Based Learning Environments
Computer tools for learning are often thought of as providing practice in working with symbolic representations. We exemplify a different perspective in which the technology augments the kinds of learning conversations that can take place. Research from the Optics Dynagrams Project illusmates contributions from this perspective. I will describe pre-intervention learning environment characteristics and student learning, our design strategy for new activities and technologies to address problems w
Towards a Domain Specific Application Development Environment for the ELeGI architecture: the Softwa
The Next Generation Grids (NGG) expert group has pioneered the vision of "Invisible Grid" whereby the complexity of Grid systems and architectures is hidden to both developers and users. In this new vision, the Grid has a different role: it will not more provide a virtual computing environment but it will be the basis of a more complex service oriented, knowledge-based and collaborative environment suitable for the specific domains in which citizen and organizations have to operate.
Grid commun
Gathering Requirements for a Grid-based Automatic Marking System
This paper reports on our experiences using a Creative Requirements [1] workshop approach to elicit requirements for a Grid-based automatic marking system. The research was conducted for ELeGI, an EU funded project whose goal is to provide a European Learning Grid infrastructure to promote a learning paradigm shift from a teacher-centred approach to a learner-centred approach.
The automatic marking system uses Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) to assess the meaning of essays written by computer sc
Experiences with Writing Grid Clients for Mobile devices
This paper describes our attempts to write GRID clients for Mobile Devices, such as a PDA, which have restrictive computational and storage facilities. Our experiences are based on an implementation of a mobile GRID client for Finesse, an existing web-based e-learning system.
At this stage of our work we are not looking to novel applications of mobile learning, but rather are exploring the feasibility of mobile devices as GRID platforms, with novel learning applications as our future aim. We ex
A Grid Services Implementation for a Virtual Research Environment
In the past, virtual learning and research environments have typically been implemented as monolithic systems. Current research focuses on creating such environments from selected Grid and Web services.
In this paper we describe the Virtual Orthopaedic European University, which was created to support Higher Surgical Trainees to provide evidence for their learning contracts by carrying out experiments and publishing the results.
We use this environment as a case study for the re-implementation
Putting knowledge to use
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Children's mental models of recursive logo programs
Children who had a year of Logo programming experience were asked to think-aloud about what brief Logo recursive programs will do, and then to predict with a hand-simulation of the programs what the Logo graphics turtle will draw when the program is executed. If discrepancies arose in this last phase, children were asked to explain them. A prevaient but misguided "looping" interpretation of Logo recursion was identified, and this robust mental model persisted even in the face of contradiction be
Symbol Systems and Thinking Skills: Logo in Context
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