ITR: A Networked, Media-Rich Programming Environment to Enhance Informal Learning and Technological Fluency at Community Technology Centers The MIT Media Laboratory and UCLA propose to develop and study a new networked, media-rich programming environment, designed specifically to enhance the development of technological fluency at after-school centers in economically disadvantaged communities. This new programming environment (to be called Scratch) will be grounded in the practices and social dynamics of Computer Clubhouses, a network of after-school centers where youth (ages 10-18) from low-income communities learn to express themselves with new technologies. We will study how Clubhouse youth (ages 10-18) learn to use Scratch to design and program new types of digital-arts projects, such as sensor-controlled music compositions, special-effects videos created with programmable image-processing filters, robotic puppets with embedded controllers, and animated characters that youth trade wirelessly via handheld devices. Scratch's networking infrastructure, coupled with its multilingual capabilities, will enable youth to share their digital-arts creations with other youth across geographic, language, and cultural boundaries. This research will advance understanding of the effective and innovative design of new technologies to enhance learning in after-school centers and other informal-education settings, and it will broaden opportunities for youth from under-represented groups to become designers and inventors with new technologies. We will iteratively develop our technologies based on ongoing interaction with youth and staff at Computer Clubhouses. The use of Scratch at Computer Clubhouses will serve as a model for other after-school centers in economically-disadvantaged communities, demonstrating how informal-learning settings can support the development of technological fluency, enabling young people to design and program projects that are meaningful to themselves and their communities.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Mitchel ResnickJohn MaedaYasmin Kafai
In this chapter we want to examine the reality behind these labels by examining the place of emergent technologies in the lives of young people. In doing so, we review and synthesize some of the key research in this area, highlighting the principal topics and potential issues of interest for future study. Although much has been published in the popular media, until fairly recently relatively little had been written from a more scholarly perspective. The overview we offer here is based on a wide range of academic research dispersed through a variety of disciplines including geography, sociology
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Susan McKayCrispin ThurlowHeather Zimmerman
Knowledge and learning exist as byproducts of social processes such as those that take place in communities of practice. We describe two frameworks for understanding and building online knowledge-building communities, or online communities of practice that enhance collective knowledge. First, the C4P framework is described as a way of understanding how knowledge is created and disseminated by participants in a community of practice. Second, we discuss ways in which technology provides added value for learning in these environments using the DDC (Design for Distributed Cognition) framework, and
Through an iterative design process involving museum educators, learning scientists and technologists, and drawing upon our previous experiences in handheld game design and a growing body of knowledge on learning through gaming, we designed an interactive mystery game called Mystery at the Museum (the High Tech Whodunnit), which was designed for synchronous play of groups of parents and children over a two to three hour period. The primary design goals were to engage visitors more deeply in the museum, engage visitors more broadly across museum exhibits, and encourage collaboration between
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Eric KlopferJudy PerryKurt SquireMing-Fong JanConstance Steinkuehler
The authors of this article discuss three pedagogical approaches, learning community, community of practice and community learning, and analyse their significance for knowledge acquisition and construction in higher education. The authors also explore the roles of technology in creating adequate environments for educators to implement teaching practices supported by these approaches and explain, through an illustrative course example, how technology and teaching methods can be used together to promote interaction among learners and help them achieve course goals.
This article describes the Quest Atlantis (QA) project, a learning and teaching project that employs a multiuser, virtual environment to immerse children, ages 9–12, in educational tasks. QA combines strategies used in commercial gaming environments with lessons from educational research on learning and motivation. It allows users at participating elementary schools and after-school centers to travel through virtual spaces to perform educational activities, talk with other users and mentors, and build virtual personae. Our work has involved an agenda and process that may be called socially
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Sasha BarabMichael ThomasTyler DodgeRobert CarteauxHakan Tuzun
Design-based research is a collection of innovative methodological approaches that involve the building of theoretically-inspired designs to systematically generate and test theory in naturalistic settings. Design-based research is especially powerful with respect to supporting and systematically examining innovation. In part, this is due to the fact that conducting design-based research involves more than examining what is. It also involves designing possibilities and then evolving theories within real-world contexts. In this article we share the historical development of three outcomes of
The Situating Hybrid Assemblies in Public Environments (SHAPE) project within the European Disappearing Computer initiative has explored how emerging ubiquitous technologies can support museum visiting experiences. SHAPE has designed hybrid artifacts that support visitors manipulating phisical and digital material in a visible and interesting manner.
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Liam BannonSteve BenfordJohn BowersChristian Heath
A critical review of the epistemological foundations of free-choice learning (FCL) theory was undertaken to evaluate how this theory treats knowledge, whatever importance we might attach to it. It is argued here that free-choice learning has great promise yet would benefit from theoretical adjustments that modify Vygotsky’s learning theory by using Dewey’s pragmatic epistemological theories. It is suggested that the concept of intramental knowledge in free-choice learning needs to be grounded on Dewey’s pragmatic conceptions of knowledge, in order to valorise the learner’s own knowledge, and
An important challenge in urban science education is finding ways to engage all students in the learning of science. However, research in this area has consistently shown that around middle school student engagement in science wanes. Using critical ethnographic methods this study reveals how students cultivate a sense of ownership in an informal science video project. Student ownership of what they they learn plays an important role in how they engage in the learning environment. In this study ownership is characterized by five themes, and the notion of student ownership science is challenged
In October 2005, the National Science Foundation brought members of its nanoscale science and engineering education (NSEE) projects to Arlington, VA for a 2-day workshop to explore the status of on-going efforts and to forge collaborations at the national level that would facilitate future efforts. NSF currently funds NSEE projects through the Division of Elementary, Secondary, and Informal Education (ESIE), the Directorate for Engineering as part of the Nanoscale Science and Engineering Centers (NSEC), National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NNIN), the Network for Computational
This monograph, the final report of the 21st Century Literacy Summit held in April 2005, presents an action plan for this emerging field applicable to higher education, K-12 education, policy makers, media & the arts, and research, and details the strategic priorities and specific recommendations for these sectors that were the summit's major outcomes.