E-Tools, for Exploration of learning objects

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Establishing a PLACE for teaching technologies Page v

TOOLS FOR HYBRID SYNCHRONOUS / ASYNCHRONOUS INTERACTION43Course delivery systems 44Community management systems 44

E for Exploration of learning objects 47DIGITAL MANIPULATIVES THAT SUPPORT CONJECTURALEXPLORATION 48

Some Resources for Manipulating Scientific Digital Objects 48Some Resources for Digitally Manipulating Mathematical Objects 50

LEARNINGTHROUGH EXPLORATION AND CONJECTURE 51Web Explorations 51Digital Exploration of Our Planet 52

Using ICTE to improve teaching 55PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT WITH ICTE 55

Personal growth with ICTE 56Career advancement with ICTE 58

COURSE ENHANCEMENT WITH ICTE 59ICTEs embedded in course requirements 60ICTEs to enhance teaching strategies 61

About the author 65 Acknowledgements Glossary 69 Works Cited Reference List for ICTE in footnotes 76

PLACE - E-TOOLS GALVIS 2009


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Establishing a PLACE for teaching technologies Page 47

Efor Exploration of learning objects

Students must acquire large amounts of cultural, scientific andtechnological knowledge in an effort to master the prescribed curriculum.In many cases though, they do not have the opportunity to experiencethe kinds of phenomena which can enrich their knowledge. Goodexplanations and complete textual and audiovisual documentation areoften useful in presenting a mental model ---at least from the eyes of thefacilitator (the teacher). However, this type of expository activity may notbe sufficient for achieving full conceptual understanding.

Science laboratories equipped with state of the art equipment help tocarry out direct practice with a distinct degree of realism and precision.The apprentices can then formulate their own theses and conclusions asa basis for discussions with others and to build knowledge. Theseresources, however, are expensive and therefore are often not available tostudents.

Field work and scale models also replicate direct experiences which helpto obtain evidence that permits the construction of knowledge; but



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everyone cannot go to places to explore the objects under study, nor canscale models capture the functionality that they possess. Consequently, itis not always viable to have a direct experience with real objects, at timesbecause of their size (micro or macro), the limited availability(phenomena of very low regularity) or simply because of costs.

Reasons such as the ones cited above have justified the great efforts of

educational research groups in the fields of mathematics, science,technology and engineering to make available to students and teacherstechnological devices that expand abilities, capture information andpermit individuals to discriminate and analyze data.

Digital Manipulatives that Support ConjecturalExploration

The following group of objects can be digitally manipulated andcontrolled by the user. This control means that the user can alter thestatus of the variables that affect the behavior of the object under study

and this may act organically; that is to say, like a live organism whichresponds to the manipulation of said variables.

Some Resources for Manipulating Scientific Digital Objects

The following list does not exhaust the possibilities that exist to obtaindigital manipulatives that support scientific learning centered on thestudent through research, experimentation and collaboration.Nonetheless, they are a good initial collection.

NSDLNational Science Digital Library [123] is a US electroniclibrary created to support education and research in sciences,

technology, engineering and mathematics. It offers free access toelectronic materials for elementary education instructors, universityprofessors, biotechnologists, the scientific community andnewcomers to the discipline.

MOLO, Molecular Logic Project [124] is a project that searches forstudents who want to understand fundamental biologicalphenomenon in terms of atom and molecule interaction. Among

123 http://nsdl.org/124 http://molo.concord.org



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other things, MOLO has activities on macro-molecules,intermolecular attractions, synthesis, the splitting of proteins. MOLOhas a database of activities for student and teacher use that can beaccessed by distinct concepts key words or numbers. Each activityindicates what technology is required; some are editable and allhave student and teacher instructions. MOLO was produced by theConcord Consortium. After registering, this public domain softwarecan be downloaded and the source code can be adapted under LGPL

license.

PHYSICS.ORG [125] is a site created by the London Institute ofPhysics of the United Kingdom in order to support students, familiesand interested educators in learning physics by means of explorationand reflection. It has an online consultation system that pairsquestions with web sites where the answers may be found. Also,relevant web sites are included that are pre-classified by age andprevious user knowledge. Moreover, Physics.org offers a collectionof study sites which have been used in the teaching and learning of

physics concepts; it reviews a web site monthly. This site hasinteractive resources that explore in a playful way the concepts ofphysics used in daily life and the history of the discipline. It also

favors the understanding and exploration of natural phenomenonthrough technology.

TEEMS [126], Technology Enhanced Elementary Math and Science,is a project of the Concord Consortium of Massachusetts withfinancing by the National Science Foundation. It produces learningunits that use computers, sensors and interactive models for learningmathematics and science. The digital resources can be run on

multiple desktop and handheld computer platforms utilizing anycommercially provided sensors that exemplify the nine US standardsfor teaching the sciences in grades 3-4, 5-6 and 7-8. The resourceshave user guides for students and teachers and are free after

registering on the project web site. The software code is open andits utilization requires the user to accept a lesser general publiclicense (LGLP).

XPLORA [127]. This is a European portal that supports scienceeducation. It is free and is presented in three languages: English,

French and German. It offers news and pedagogical ideas for

125 http://www.physics.org/index.asp126 http://portal.teemss2.concord.org127 http://www.xplora.org/ww/en/pub/xplora/index.htm



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science instructors. It provides access to a data base of electronicresources for science education. It also opens the door to projectsand innovative focuses for practical teaching. It allows registeredusers to create and to participate in virtual communities.

Some Resources for Digitally Manipulating Mathematical Objects

The following web sites include resources that help to enliven

experiences using mathematical concepts.

MATHSNET [128] gives access to a collection of web producedresources or those suggested by the Interactive Tools for Scienceand Math program for student and teacher use. The great majorityof the applications offered by this service are in Java, are free andsupport the learning of mathematics or science at the secondarylevel.

NLVMNational Library of Virtual Manipulatives [129] was createdto support the interactive learning of mathematics and includes acollection of applications in Java (Java applets) that are utilized by

Internet users; it was created by the State University of Utah. Itincludes manipulatives for distinct ages and different groups ofstandards for teaching mathematics. Each manipulative comes withinstructions, with help for parents and lesson plans for educators,and with an explanation of the mathematics standards that supportits use. It is possible to get copies of the CD or to use it on the web.

SEEING MATH INTERACTIVES [130] offers a collection of digitalmanipulatives (digital objects that can be manipulated and respondorganically to stimuli that they receive) for playing with secondaryalgebra concepts that are difficult to understand. Each digitalmanipulative allows for multiple representations of mathematicalknowledge (symbolic, numeric, graphic). In order to use them onemust have Java [131] in the same version or higher than 1.3.1.These interactives, produced by the Concord Consortium ofMassachusetts, can be installed and used freely in educationalinstitutions or by educators who register on the web site. Also theycan be adjusted for whoever downloads the code for the LGLP openlicense.

128 http://www.mathsnet.net/asa2/2004/tech.html129 http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vlibrary.html130 http://seeingmath.concord.org/sms_interactives.html131 http://www.java.com



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Learning Through Exploration and Conjecture

There are many ways of learning conjecturally and by discovery beyondthe use of digital manipulatives. Lets review below the methods andtools that have been shown to be effective in this process.

Web Explorations

Web explorations are like organized field trips with educational ends.They place the learner in contact with first hand information that he canuse as he pleases. Lets review two of the best known methodologies andtools.

CYBERGUIDES [132] are web resources that support the creation oflearning units focused on analyzing universal works of literature.The Cyberguides are instructional units about literature used assupplementary material the responds to the language standards ofthe State of California. Each Cyberguide contains student andteacher versions specifying the standards that are being addressed,

the activities and processes that are being carried out, the sitesselected and a rubric for orientation and evaluation.

WEBQUEST [133] is a methodology and a tool for constructingexploration activities using the web. It was developed in San DiegoState University. It offers teachers the opportunity to examine andto select learning activities based on the web and to structure themas a lesson.

Bernie Dodge, the creator of WebQuest at San Diego State Universityexplains (2007) that technologically, creating a WebQuest can be verysimple. As long as you can create a document with hyperlinks, you can

create a WebQuest. That means that a WebQuest can be created inWord, Powerpoint, and even Excel! If you're going to call it a WebQuest,though, be sure that it has all the critical attributes.

132 http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/cyberguide.html133 http://webquest.org/



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A real WebQuest....

is wrapped around a doable and interesting task that is ideally ascaled down version of things that adults do as citizens orworkers.

requires higher level thinking, not simply summarizing. Thisincludes synthesis, analysis, problem-solving, creativity and

judgment. makes good use of the web. A WebQuest that isn't based on real

resources from the web is probably just a traditional lesson indisguise. (Of course, books and other media can be used within aWebQuest, but if the web isn't at the heart of the lesson, it's not aWebQuest.)

isn't a research report or a step-by-step science or mathprocedure. Having learners simply distilling web sites and makinga presentation about them isn't enough.

isn't just a series of web-based experiences. Having learners golook at this page, then go play this game, then go here and turnyour name into hieroglyphs doesn't require higher level thinking

skills and so, by definition, isn't a WebQuest.

Digital Exploration of Our Planet

The teaching of social sciences has a large number of applications whichsupport the exploration of our planet from different heights withdifferent levels of details.

GOOGLE EARTH [134] and WORLD WIND [135] are two explorationtools of physical sites from any place on the planet that allow visualimages to be taken from a satellite and come as close as possible.

Both use geographical information systems with maps that can beseen from different heights with different levels of detail. Althoughthey may look alike, they are different products [136]. Both toolsoffer free versions. Google Earth is basic, although it is possible toget a more advanced version. Once installed, one learns how to usethe tools through direct experience (trial and error), guided

134 http://earth.google.com135 http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/136 http://www.worldwindcentral.com/65wiki/Google_Earth_comparison



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experience (using online support), by demonstration (following thetutorial) or being part of interest groups.

When these tools are used collaboratively by students to research andconstruct knowledge, they can be combined with other tools to create apublishable document or object. It is becoming popular to use GoogleEarth to make cyber excursions through countries where anotherlanguage is spoken with the purpose of expanding students linguistic,literary, cultural, geophysical and geopolitical knowledge by consultingmultimedia geo-referenced resources that are associated with the placesof the cyber-excursions. From these findings students can shareelectronic reflections and participate in discussion forums, or blogs,about the multiple perspectives obtained.


E-Tools, for Exploration of learning objects

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