AERA Friday: Advanced Technologies for Learning

SIG-Advanced Technologies
for Learning

Scheduled Time: Fri, Apr 15 - 8:15am - 10:15am Building/Room: Le
Centre Sheraton Montreal / Salon 8

Chair : Scott B. McDonald, sum16@psu.edu, Pennsylvania
State University

Mad City Murder: A Professional Practice Simulation in Environmental
Sciences by *Kurt D. Squire, Ming Fong Jan

Handheld technologies, particularly augmented reality simulations, hold great
promise for creating new kinds of learning experiences that span the digital
and the "real" world. Learners have opportunities for participating
in distributed professional practices (Shaffer, 2004) that embody not only
the practices, but the epistemologies of the professions. This study examines
key issues in creating a sustainable, scalable platform for augmented reality
simulations. As a part of our broader design experiement methodology, we articulate
key design features implemented in this field study, and describe how they
led to better engagement and more authentic scientific practices. We develop
a theory of epistemic games, based on Shaffer's notions of epistemic frames.

• (PC to Mac Powerpoint


• from computer to every desktop to computer in every palm


• what are the affordances of the PDA? portability, social interactivity,
  context sensitivity, connectivity, individuality (Eric Klopfer)


• when real meets virtual


• AR sim games place players as participants in a complex system while drawing
  on players' emotional and cognitive relations through designed experiencese
  in order to solve complex emotional problems


• design experiment framework (brown 1992)


• case study (stake 1995)


• Discourse Analysis

Does the Choice of Animated Pedagogical Agents Help Students Learn
Science From a Multimedia Game?

*Roxana Moreno, Terri L. Flowerday, Casey Frechette

College students learned about science with a multimedia game. One group (choice or C) chose to learn with or without an animated pedagogical agent (APA) representing a male or female of five different ethnicities. Another group (no-choice or NC) was assigned an APA by the system. All participants in C group chose to learn with APAs and students of color chose significantly more same-ethnicity APAs than White American students. A significant interaction between choice and ethnic similarity factors revealed that group C produced lower retention, transfer, and program ratings when learning with same-ethnicity rather than different-ethnicity APAs. Results support an interference hypothesis for students who choose to learn with same-ethnicity APAs.

• Common wisdom says "yes" b/c we're anthropomorphic social beings


• (the MS Word PaperClip is an example of an APA)


• Media Characteristics: Highly visible APA, intended to promote
  motivation and learning;


• Properties-- External: social cues represented. Internal: instructional
  methods embedded


• examples: Steve, Cosmo, Adele, Herman-the-Bug, Microsoft agents
  (Peedy the Parrot, etc.)


• research: Atkinson 2002, Craig et al 2002, Mayer 2003, Moreno
  et al 2001


• Big question: Is it worth the cost to create those APAs? Research says
  APAs have no effect (positive or negative).


• Question: would students choose to learn with or without an APA if given
  the chance? (A: with)


• Followup Question: for those with APA, given the choice, would they choose
  an APA that reflects their ethnicity and gender? (A: students of color, yes)


• Followup Question: Would the ability to choose make a difference? (A: Yes,
  same-ethnicity choice had lower performance than No choice kids, or other
  ethnicity choice)


• results contrived through program rating questionnaire


• Preliminary Study: validating gender and ethnic representations
  (appearance only, voices were the same)


• no choice group was matched same gender and same ethnicity


• Why: "cognitive distraction" (Walker, Sproull, & Subramani,
  1994)


• Methinks: role model, identifying with same ethnicity
  agent with generic voice would definitely be distracting. Do something wrong
  and it's

Introduction to Agent and Library Augmented Shared Knowledge Areas
(ALASKA)

*Eric R. Hamilton --US Air force Academy (and Ron Cole from
UC Boulder)

This paper reports on an NSF-funded effort to integrate three learning technologies that have emerged and matured over the past decade; each has presented compelling and oftentimes moving opportunities to alter educational practice and to render learning more effective. The project seeks a novel way to blend these technologies and to create and test a new model for human-machine partnership in learning settings. The three learning technologies are pedagogical agents; shared collaborative workspaces; and digital libraries. The innovation in this project creates an applet-rich shared space whereby a pedagogical agent at each learner’s station functions as an instructional assistant to the teacher or professor and tutor to the student. The platform is intended to open a series of new -- and instructionally potent -- interactive pathways. With this platform, each student interacts with his or her personal agent in solving problems or acquiring new curricular concepts; the teacher can direct the agents; and all of the participants (teacher, students and agents) have immediate access to the applet library for clarifying visualizations or simulations of curriculum concepts. The agents communicate with each other and can collect and organize instructionally specific data across the class for the professor. The AERA-SIG session outlines the technology development and research effort NSF is supporting.

• Design: shared collaborative spaces (shared writing on tablet PC), animated
  agents, digital libraries


• Can networks that endow and engage virtual humans help propel richer, deeper,
  and more meaningful interaction between real humans?


• The SlateMate Vision, piloted and prototyped in Chicago, about 10 years
  ago, but never pushed farther because handwriting technology never advanced
  to the classroom (part of the ethos of "making thinking visible")


• WYSIWIS (What you see, is what I see) ("wizzywiz")


• currently using Smart SynchroEyes, Acer tablets,


• If I can see what you're doing, it's likely that you'll be more engaged
  (surveillance)


• students did "self-engagement" reports (too easy --> just
  right --> too hard (Vygotsky's ZPD)


• if you bump up level of engagement even 5%, from, say 15% to 20%, then
  that's a good thing, no?


• (sort of a democracy, where kids get to do real-time ratings)


• each student has its own agent (APA), each agent has specialized knowledge


• if stuck, the student can ask agent. If agent can't answer, agent will
  search the classroom to see if there's another student who is working on
  the same thing; if the students can't help, the question gets bumped up to
  the teacher.


• (top down -- hierarchically-based education; chains of command model)


• working on building the expertise into the model


• This is the future of education -- expertise is at the top, with
  the teacher.


• trying to optimize GCL (germane cognitive load) and attention by all parties
  (no time to reflect on own, or let mind wander -- school mind is focused
  on official content)


• Human attentional capacity is significantly higher than the handwriting
  paradigm suggests.


• surveilled by: agent, object (libraries), peers, teacher


• the agent becomes the teacher's surrogate, and speaks for the teacher (authority
  conferred to APA)


• this will: modify the rhythm of instructional activity; remove
  some repetitive tasking; change competency requirements of teachers; be
  really really scary!

My thoughts: Here comes Homeland Security's idea of the future
of education -- complete with Foucault's Panopticon (see: http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=371)

Teacher Use of Online Learning Resources: Assessing the Impact of
a Participatory Workshop Model by  *Mimi M. Recker, Jim Dorward,
Sam Halioris, Deonne Dawson, Michael Lyman

This paper describes the development, enactments, and evaluation of a professional development workshop model, called DLConnect, designed to help teachers learn about and integrate digital library tools and learning resources into their practice. The workshop curriculum included instruction on the National Science Digital Library and an associated end-user authoring tool. The approach to the development of the workshop model and enactments was participatory and user-centered. Each cycle of enactments was followed by a participatory evaluation strategy, which enabled participants to contribute to development and evaluation.

• http://ia.usu.edu and http://dlconnect.usu.edu and http://llnsdl.org 


• lots of resources spent on Learning Objects and resources with the goal
  of increasing student and teacher access and use to high-quality learning
  resources in order to improve learning


• NSDL (National Science Digital Library ) http://llnsdl.org :
  unlike Google, let's only have high-quality stuff here. (interpretation:
  let's only have government-approved propaganda here)


• Last look, NSDL had 500 collections contributing, and 3/4 million resources


• Instructional Architect (IA) -- http://ia.usu.edu


• customized home page for teacher, student, etc.


• trying to lower technological barriers, bring design of project to teacher
  (this is cool!)


• Professional development with teachers must be: adaptable (evolving); linked
  to standards (relevant); hands-on, design-based (empowering); collaborative
  (shared); sustained


• How? show motivating example; describe goals of NSDL; slelct problem,
  link to standards,; teach searching skills; ________


• iterative, participatory design cycle


• (nice presentation, good design, fonts match the font of the logo, layout,
  etc.)


• what's important: using teacher language, making adaptable, ability to
  use other resources, ability to add graphics (make cute -- this speaks to
  the APA presentation earlier)


• hard to sustain, very exciting, but difficult to change practice (especially
  due to poor technology infrastructure)


• iterative, participatory design increases utility of resulting
  artifacts and theory, but decreases power of use

My thoughts: this is pretty cool, well-designed, and adaptable.
This is the way I think it should be...

Measuring Student Gains in Conceptual Mathematics in Scaling a Technological
Intervention for Middle School Mathematics by *Nicole Shechtman,
Jeremy Roschelle, Geneva D. Haertel, Deborah G. Tatar, Jennifer Knudsen

• Can technology democratize mathematics learning?


• (I'll be focusing elsewhere during this talk -- sorry, not my thing)

Discussant: Mitchell Nathan, mnathan@wisc.edu,
University of Wisconsin-Madison

• APA: ask learniers about their expectaions; why did they choose what they
  did?


• APA: do adults make the same choices?


• NSDL: how is lesson planning different?


• SimCalc: Accuracy of experts' predications of students' problem-solving
  difficulties


• MCM: did the Voc Ed students plan on going to college? Most do


• ALASKA: teacher professional development?


• MCM: epistemic frames/games where technology and immersive activities situate
  learners in a different worldview.


• MCM: what is the culure and general of the characters? waht effect does
  it have?


• what are the interactions of characters? (ALASKA)


• ALASKA: instructional bandwidth;


• if you shave off the frills, is what's left good design? (Less is More)


• SimCalc: routine knoweldge (M1) and Advanced knowledge (M2)


• epistemic frame: = what role is the person perceiving
  the world from?