Learning Science through Collaborative Visualization over the Internet

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Learning Science through Collaborative
Visualization over the Internet

• Roy Pea
• Stanford University
• Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning
• Nobel Symposium Virtual Museums 2002

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Collaborative Visualization

• Development of scientific knowledge
• Mediated by using scientific visualization and
  CSCW tools
• In a collaborative context
• Supported by constructivist pedagogy.

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What was the CoVis Project?

• A wideband network that formed a distributed
  learning environment for reform-oriented science
  education by developing a culture of science
  practice, including
• Integrated suite of tools for network-based
  project-enhanced science learning
• Internet direct to 5-6 desktops per classroom,
  and all students with individual accounts
• Scientific visualization and inquiry tools--focus
  on earth and atmospheric sciences
• Collaborative media spaces Collaboratory
  Notebook, communication, and video-conferencing
  with screen sharing
• Project-oriented pedagogy and services
• Learning activities/web services for interschool
  collaborations
• Continuing professional development for teachers,
  with a focus on project-oriented pedagogy
• Mentor database services for involving scientists

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But this was 1992 and there were no web browsers!
When the grant proposal was written in 1991,
Internet-based videoconferencing was only
possible with a 40,000 hardware codec.
Scientific visualization was not seen in the K-12
classroom.
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Learning through Collaborative Visualization

• The vision was to establish a prototype of a
  future distributed multimedia learning
  environment for science that would integrate
  distributed expertise including educators,
  learning researchers, scientists at universities,
  and a science education museum.

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CoVis Guiding Principles

• Learn science by doing science
• Invite and nurture open-ended questions
• Foster refinements of questions in reflective
  discussions
• Secure respect and value for the diversity of
  learners questions
• Provide multiple representations as diverse and
  flexible means for asking and answering questions
  
• Teach inquiry by modeling inquiry
• Support progress in learning by seeding it with
  the use of powerful ideas
• Reflect these principles in the assessment of
  student activities

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Use scenario Global warming studies

• First, staging activities guide learning about
  greenhouse effect, greenhouse gases, and
  variation in seasonal climate patterns using
  learner-centered scientific visualization tools
  and the same NASA and NOAA datasets used by the
  scientific community.
• Then, student teams collaborate across schools
  over the Internet on projects following questions
  of their interest.
• The 8-week cycle ends when they present findings
  at a global summit where diverse national or
  ideological perspectives are represented.

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Distributed Learning Communities
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Where did we start? With a vision and some
partners...
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Perspective on technologies for learning

• Historically, new representational systems
  provide cognitive power and have social
  consequences (e.g., writing, algebra, graphing,
  computer models)
• Distributed intelligence supports activity in
  human-technology systems.
• Cognitive technologies to see, design, build,
  whats more difficult, error-prone, impossible
  without them.
• Social technologies Enable collective activity
  such as collaborations, cooperations, more
  difficult without them.
• Technologies often change the problems that it is
  possible to pose, not only to solve
• Leads to re-structuring of what it means to know
  and understand in a discipline (and hence
  learning)

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Perspective on science education reform

• View of science in terms of communities of
  practice, sharing values and norms, language,
  tools, practices
• Constructivist conception of science learning
  as building on a learners prior belief systems
• Promoting science learning as guided inquiry in
  practices akin to scientific ones, using similar
  tools
• That science is a social practice is compatible
  with science being nonetheless about a material
  world

Internet
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Changing the processes of learning

• Beyond traditional distance learning (talking
  heads)
• Goal was to create highly-interactive learning
  environments that reproduce or exceed
  face-to-face
• Distributed learning communities
• Shared media spaces for collaborative learning
• Interschool projects mediated by groupware,
  web-based resources and scientific visualization
• Telementoring and teleapprenticeships
• Virtual fieldtrips to museums and research labs

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Components of the CoVis Testbed in 1992-93

• Hybrid high-speed public-access network for data
  services and desktop videoconferencing
• Scientific visualization tools (Climate
  Visualizer, Weather Visualizer)
• Collaboration support (Collaboratory Notebook)
• Integrated email, FTP, Gopher
• 1993 summer teacher workshop (Internet, project
  science, visualization, collaboration tools)
• Few learning activities (teachers suggested that
  they would build them around resources and tools)

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1992-94...CoVis Community Proof of concept
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Benefits of Scientific Visualization

• Scientific visualization an image rendered
  through high-speed computer graphics that is
  based on a numerical data set that describes some
  quantity in the world (e.g., global
  temperatures).
• Uses visual reasoning to understand science
• Provides big picture view of complex systems
• Can connect students to scientific communities by
  allowing access to existing and used data sets
• Acts as conversational props for learning
  discussions
• Provides resources for inquiries in student
  projects

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Scientists Visualization Tools
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From Scientists Workbench to Learner-Centered
Scientific Visualization Applications (1993)

• Climate Visualizer
• NMC Archival data providing twenty-five years of
  twice daily measurements of temperature, winds,
  and pressure at several levels of the atmosphere.
  Coverage over most of the Northern Hemisphere.
• Weather Visualizer
• Real time hourly data providing custom weather
  maps including temperature, dew point, fronts,
  severe weather warnings and weather station
  reports. Coverage over contiguous United States
  and Canada.

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CoVis Collaboratory Notebook (1993)

• ...was a shared, networked hypermedia database
• ...was a place where students, teachers, and
  scientist mentors...
• Record thoughts, plans, and actions
• Respond to the work of others
• Are scaffolded in steps of project inquiry and
  collaboration
• ...in the course of open-ended scientific inquiry

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What did we learn from practice?
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First year testbed woes (1993)

• Learners inquiry questions often went beyond
  available visualization datasets
• Learners and teachers needed more support, and
  scheduled events to motivate scientific
  visualizer use in projects
• Few cross-school project teams emerged
• Lack of fit of videoconferencing to common
  education tasks, despite early teacher excitement
• Needed regular access to Collaboratory Notebook
  to warrant integral use in projects
• Transitioning to project pedagogy presented many
  challenges to teachers and learners

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Redesign Tools and Activities (93-94)

• Added more learner support in tool and activity
  wraparounds for scientific visualizers
• Piloted scheduled on-line events to encourage
  cross-school projects and pedagogy (CIAs)
• Planning for a Greenhouse Effect Visualizer as
  new domain for inquiry projects
• Set-up out-of-classroom computers to increase
  Internet access for collaboration and
  communication
• To motivate adoption, we tried desktop video for
  remote classroom support of teachers

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Observations and CoVis Redesign (94-95)

• Assessment Teachers sought project assessment
  rubrics, and established clearer expectations for
  students on work process and products
• Mentors More ready access to mentors to help
  scope student projects, and identify data for
  investigating students questions (explored a
  mentor database)
• Models More curriculum activities and datasets
  around which students questions could be
  developed (explore web-based resources and
  activities)
• Domains New Greenhouse Effect Visualizer into
  use
• Archival global data of monthly means for a year
  providing surface temperature, incoming sunlight,
  albedo (reflectivity), energy absorbed and
  emitted by the earth, and measurement of
  greenhouse effect

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New Challenges for Summer 1995

• National Science Foundation asks for national
  scale-up of CoVis from AAT (92-94) to NIE
  (95-97) program
• What scaling issues are involved in making CoVis
  innovations broadly available to many more and
  far more diverse schools?
• What do we find to be needed in software,
  network, activity design and teacher support?
• OR How does the system of distributed
  intelligence in support of science learning need
  to be redesigned to fit these new challenges?

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Scaleup Changes in CoVis Classrooms (From 1992-94
to 1995-1997)

• 2 high schools using 12 computers --gt 42 middle
  and high schools 1000 computers (56KB to T-1
  level Internet connections)
• Size and diversity of learner community
  270--gt5000 students, 80 white --gt 47 white, 34
  African American, 14 Latino, 5 Asian
• Broader geographic and economic diversity
• Many low-income urban schools, e.g., 11 in
  Chicago Jersey City Patterson
• Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, South
• Teacher community from 6 to 100 teachers, plus
  40 tech coordinators, 100s of scientist
  telementors

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Challenges in scaling CoVis (1995-97)

• Experimental, hand-supported reforms gt
  institutionalized, sustainable ones with local
  ownership
• Demonstration activities using new tools gt
  repeatable, curriculum-based activity structures
• Local, informal face-to-face development
  activities for 6 teachers gt formal workshops,
  print materials, on-line support of 100 teachers
  in 13 states working with over 5000 students
• CoVis staff technical support for 2 local high
  schools gt training and remote support of on-site
  tech personnel for 42 middle and high schools
• Proprietary software gt web-based open system
  standards
• Informal use of mentors gt on-line mentor database

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What did we re-design in response to these
challenges?

• GeoSciences Web server for guiding new classrooms
  into the CoVis community
• Workshops for teachers and school tech support
  staff (summer, on-line, targetted face to face)
• Web-based software distribution and ongoing
  teacher support system
• Scaled project collaboration support
• Collaboratory Notebook for thousands of users
• CU-See Me desktop videoconferencing

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• Design team partners from Northwestern, U.Col.,
  U.Mich., UIUC, U.Chicago, UniData, NCAR (late
  1994-early 1995)
• Professional development resources on learning
  perspectives, doing projects, mentoring,
  visualization, collaboration
• CoVis Activities and Projects -- to provide a
  range of scheduled learning activities from which
  students can evolve projects, and teachers
  develop and share new designs
• CoVis Resources -- visualization tools and data,
  Virtual Field Trips, Interactive Weather
  Briefings
• CoVis Teacher Lounge -- information and materials
  teachers need to conduct project-based science
  and participate in CoVis, including links to
  tools, activities, assessment rubrics, mentors,
  and listservs
• CoVis Student Lounge -- information and materials
  students need to do project-based science and
  participate in CoVis

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CoVis Interschool Activities (CIAs)

• Scheduled project cycles running 2-5 weeks, with
  interschool matchmaking brokered by CoVis staff
• CIAs provide opportunities for network
  collaboration, mentoring, Exploratorium
  Topic-Based Virtual Field Trips.
• Land Use Management Planning (2 weeks)
• Soil Science (3 weeks)
• Weather Prediction, inc. UIUC Interactive Weather
  Briefings (4 weeks), web-based Weather Visualizer
• Global Warming (5 weeks)
• Teachers evaluated each CIA after use, and we
  improved resources and activity support for each
  next iteration.

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CoVis-UIUC Weather Visualizerhttp//storm.atmos.u
iuc.edu/covis2/visualizer/
75,000 Hits Per Day (in 1997)
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(No Transcript)
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UIUC/CoVis Online Guide to Meteorology
http//covis1.atmos.uiuc.edu/guide/guide.html
70,000 Hits Per Day to Just-in-time Learning
Modules (in 1997)
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Online Guide to Meteorology http//covis1.atmos.u
iuc.edu/guide/guide.html
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The CoVis Greenhouse Effect Visualizer (web-based)
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Visualization window from ClimateWatcher
displaying surface temperature for January 1987
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Exploratorium ExploraNet (http//www.exploratoriu
m.edu/)
100,000 Hits Per Day (in 1997)
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CoVis Mentor Database (verified registry,
checkin/out, email router)
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What changed with CoVis scaling and diversity
from 1992-94 to 1995-97?

• Mainly integrating technology and social support
  roles in our redesigns
• Transformations in how we viewed our roles
• From central invention, building, guiding gt To
  brokering partners, coordinating events,
  supporting a decentralized community with diverse
  needs
• From providing teachers with resources for
  project science (tools, datasets) gt To providing
  reform seeds and services that vary widely
  across settings as each teacher re-invents the
  CoVis Project

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Emerging challenges with scaling in diverse
schools (1996-97)

• Urban schools set up labs with unpredictable
  access (to simplify their security needs)
• Low levels of tech support,under-budgeted teacher
  training
• Shifting leaders and goals make commitments to
  project reforms and technology difficult
• Gaps between present teaching practice
  project-centered learning -- Need on-line and
  on-site support, models and guidance for doing
  projects
• Urban students had far less home computing
  experience or access and report less efficacy
  with computers (compared to their suburban peers)

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CoVis Teachers Learning Together
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Some Lessons Learned in the CoVis Project

• Innovative computing and communications tools
  make possible forms of learning and teaching
  exciting for kids and teachers (real-time data,
  visualizations, telementoring, virtual field
  trips, student-scientist partnerships)
• Loosely coupled technological tools and
  activities are insufficient to shape classroom
  reform and change. Whats better?
• Scheduled CoVis Inter-school Activities (CIAs),
  such as the Global Warming Summit
• Teachers are often eager for reform changes in
  classroom activities, but it is very hard to
  produce it by themselves -- brokering and
  coordination are critical roles
• Not all tools developed for the office workplace
  fit well with classroom practices (e.g.,
  videoconferencing)

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Developments from 1997-2002

• Establishment of NSF Center for Learning
  Technologies in Urban Schools and scaling of
  CoVis throughout urban schools in Chicago and
  Detroit using new generations of WorldWatcher and
  curriculum activities

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LeTUS

• Nearly 100 schools throughout the Chicago and
  Detroit areas are using LeTUS science curricula,
  including new elaborated versions of the pilot
  curricula developed in the CoVis Project, and new
  versions of the WorldWatcher software.
• These city school districts recognize the
  potential of inquiry-driven, technology-rich
  science education, and have committed resources
  to developing the means to support it. They are
  changing the way science is taught in their
  schools. And they are paving the way for systemic
  educational reform.
• LeTUS also emphasizes curriculum implementation
  and revision, and teacher professional
  development Local teachers and university
  researchers collaborate in the design and
  revision of curricula so that local teachers
  become the catalysts for change.

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WorldWatcher Animation Incoming solar energy for
a year
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Continuing Challenges for Project-Based Learning
Environments

• Supporting diversity effectively Different
  components of readiness for wide-scale
  technology-supported educational reforms in
  science instruction
• Administrative support for continuing teacher
  development
• Perspective on curriculum, pedagogy, assessment
• Technology support for reform pedagogy
• Networking and computing infrastructure
• Engaging the scientific community in precollege
  education
• Sustainability of tools and services
• Issues of access and equity in K-12 technology
  use, and home-school-community connectivity

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DISCUSSION