Design Principles for Ubiquitous Computing in Education

Michele W. SpitulnikUniversity of California, Berkeley

Center for Innovative Learning TechnologiesJohn Bransford, Vanderbilt University Marcia Linn, UC BerkeleyRoy Pea, Stanford UniversityNora Sabelli, SRIBob Tinker, Concord Consortium

Design Principle: Facilitate data collection in the field

Represented in features of three ubiquitous applications:

– Probeware– CyberTracker– WISE Palm Application

ProbewareConcord Consortium• Probeware includes CCProbes,

sensors, interfaces, supporting software, and related curricula for classroom lab activities

• CCProbes are used by students to heighten their understanding of the world including concepts related to temperature, force, current, light and motion.

• CCProbes combine measurement with the computer's ability to display, record, and communicate visualizations of the measured data.

http://concord.org

WISE Palm ApplicationWISE Research Group

Tim Zimmerman, UC Berkeley

Jim Slotta, UC Berkeley

• Palm application integrated with the WISE Ocean Stewards project and visits to the Monterey Bay Aquarium

• Students collect data on fish at the Aquarium

• Data collection scaffolded with designed prompts, multiple choice lists, pictures of relevant objects, hints, and opportunities for recording reflections.

http://wise.berkeley.edu

CyberTrackerBioKids Research Group

Nancy Songer, U Michigan

• BioKids explores how organisms meet basic needs and how the environment supports a variety of organisms.

• Students use CyberTracker software on Visors to collect data and to answer: Which zone in my schoolyard has the highest biodiversity?

• Students upload data to a database to analyze animal abundance, animal richness. Cybertracker and the database share common organizational structures to easily allows students to locate and analyze relevant data.

http://www.biokids.umich.edu/

Design Principle: Facilitate data collection in the field

Limitations and Tradeoffs– Students need supports in collecting and

representing data. – Supports need to allow for the complexity of real

world problems and data– Supports also need to structure the data collection

process so students can make sense of data and build explanations.

Design Principle: Support the use of multiple representations of phenomena

Represented in features of three ubiquitous applications:

– Probeware– Sketchy– NetCalc

SketchyHi-CE Research Group

William Bobrowsky, U Michigan

• Sketchy is a simplified drawing program for Palm handhelds with an animation tool that allows students to create dynamic representations of science phenomena.

• The animation tool consists of three components: 1) create multiple pages as you might in a flip book, 2) duplicate pages, 3) play pictures in succession.

• Students use animation to illustrate understanding of polluted v. clean air and water and to show differences in bacteria and virus growth.

http://www.handheld.hice-dev.org/

NetCalcJim Kaput, U Mass.Jeremy Roschelle, Phil Vahey, Deborah Tatar, SRI

• Month long SimCalc curriculum adapted to Palm handhelds

• Representing the mathematics of change

• Graphical representations linked to (car) motion simulations

http://www.simcalc.umassd.edu/

ProbewareConcord Consortium

• Probeware includes CCProbes, sensors, interfaces, supporting software, and related curricula for classroom lab activities

• Students collect data related to temperature, force, current, light and motion.

• CCProbes combine measurement with the computer's ability to display, record, and communicate visualizations of the measured data.

http://concord.orgFast Response Temperature Probe

Returning to equilibrium in still air

Design Principle: Support the use of multiple representations of phenomena

Limitations and Tradeoffs– Students need support in understanding the

different representations– Students need support in understanding the links

between different representations– Students need support in understanding when and

why to use different representations