Note: Participation in projects will vary depending upon the number of credits for which students are registered. However, all participants will need to complete regular weekly assignments.
Students are expected to come to each class meeting having read material in advance. For this course, this includes reviewing specific online demos as well as reading weekly papers. Students are also expected to contribute to online discussions as well as during class. Each class participant will also lead in-class discussion, and summarize class discussion online, at least once over the course of the term.
Students may, depending on credit registration, participate in one or more collaborative projects over the course of the term. These projects take two forms: collaborative web development projects which review and synthesize work in the visualization and modeling field based on one of three perspectives, and collaborative R&D projects, where a group of students explore issues related to the use of visualization or modeling approaches to meet a specific problem, and design prototype solutions for the problem. Both projects will be supervised by course faculty, and students are encouraged to form groups that cut across the participating institutions.
| Jan 18, 2000 |
Introduction
Visualization and modeling brainstorm activity: Where have visualizations helped you learn?
Quick tour of sample visualization and modeling environments.
Review of expectations and scope of the seminar.
Background reading for the course
Chapter 1 of Card, S. K., Mackinlay, J. D., & Schneiderman, B. (1999). Information visualization. In S. K. Card, J. D. Mackinlay, & B. Schneiderman (Eds.), Readings in Information Visualization: Using Vision to Think. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann.
Gordin, D. N., & Pea, R. D. (1995). Prospects for scientific visualization as an educational technology. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 4(3), 249-279.
Homework for next week
Go to the discussion site and create a login for yourself. Once you can log in to the discussion forum, go to "profiles" and provide a short bio or description of yourself and your goals for the course.
Read Hay and Barab. Prior to next week's class, go to the discussion forum and contribute a reflection, question, or comment about the reading to the "Virtual Reality Solar System" thread.
Check out the related web site for Virtual Reality Solar System. If you have the right equipment, there is a demo available -- we'll have a chance to see this in class.
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| Jan 25, 2000 |
Ken Hay/Virtual Reality Solar System
Discuss Hay & Barab reading.
Demo of student models from the Indiana course.
In small groups, define for ourselves the three focus areas for web projects:
curriculum and pedagogical design issues, enabling technological design issues,
and research and learning theories and their implications. (Notes from this activity are online.)
Discussion summarized online by: Baumgartner
Readings, links, and downloads for this week
Required: Hay & Barab. Optional: Barnett et. al.
For full citations and downloadable articles, see the reading list on the main MVL site for week of Jan 24-28.
There are related links, including a link to the Virtual Reality Solar System website, on the main MVL resources page.
For those with the bandwidth and the time, there is a downloadable verison of VRSS available as well.
Here's an alternative site at IU for VSS work.
Homework for next week
Read Thomas and contribute to the online discussion. Marcia will post a few questions for
everyone to think about.
Explore the CLP (Computers, Learners, Peers) website. This is a companion site for
the CLP book and summarizes the primary components of Scaffolded Knowledge Integration (SKI),
as well as listing a set of pragmatic design principles for each of the four SKI
components.
Explore the WISE website. WISE (Web-based integrated science environment) is the current
effort to design and study curricula based on SKI. Of particularly interest to this seminar
are two WISE projects: Deformed Frogs and Alameda Creek.
Deformed Frogs: Parasite Hypothesis
This project focuses on one particular hypothesis for why deformed frogs are more prevalent nowadays. (There is a related project that explores another hypothesis.) The visualization connection is a tool is called SenseMaker; it is used towards the end of the project to visually organize evidence based on how well it supports specific hypotheses.
Alameda Creek
This project explores the nature of water quality using a local stream as context. Students learn about water quality, collect data at the local stream, and analyze that data. The relevant visualization tool is a causal mapping tool that students use to generate visual representations of the relationships among water quality factors.
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| Feb 1, 2000 |
Marcia Linn/Scaffolded Knowledge Integration
Discuss Thomas reading.
Demo of WISE projects.
Readings, links, and downloads for this week
Required: Thomas.
For full citations and related web sites, see the main MVL site for week of Jan 31-Feb 4.
Homework for next week
Read Penner, Schauble and Lehrer articles and contribute to the online discussion.
Cheryl is leading discussion for these readings.
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| Feb 8, 2000 |
Leona Schauble, Rich Lehrer, and David Penner
Homework for next week
Read Edelson articles and contribute to the discussion online.
Full citations, downloadable articles and related web links
are on the main MVL site for this week.
Note: the JLS article is available online at this link. We'll get that link onto the main MVL site soon.
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| Feb 15, 2000 |
Danny Edelson/WorldWatcher
Discuss WorldWatcher readings (Masako leads).
WorldWatcher demo.
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| Feb 22, 2000 |
Chris Dede/ScienceScape
Discuss Dede reading (Shankar leads).
QuickTime video of ScienceScape.
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| Feb 29, 2000 |
Mary Hegarty/Interactive Multimedia
Brief demo of representations related to MaxwellWorld by Joe Redish.
Discuss Hegarty readings.
Demo of UCSB animation from the reading.
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| Mar 7, 2000 |
Raul Zaritsky/Data Mining
Note: project descriptions must be posted online by Monday, March 7!
Descriptions, which should be 1-2 pages long, should be posted to the discussion
topic about your project.
Discuss Zaritsky reading (Kathryn will lead). Raul's presentation is available
in both PowerPoint and HTML form.
Update: Raul has made video lectures and presentations available.
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| Mar 14, 2000 |
Michele Wisnudel Spitulnik, Model-It and Eric Baumgartner, Causal Mapping
See the main website for readings and demos.
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| Mar 21, 2000 |
Nancy Butler Songer/One Sky Many Voices
Two readings for the course. These can be downloaded from the main website or
from here: Internet-enabled-multimedia.pdf,
Lee_&_Songer-10-8-99.pdf.
Inspiration demo.
Sherry presents her work on genetically modified foods.
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| Mar 28, 2000 |
Spring recess. |
| Apr 4, 2000 |
Open date (project work). |
| Apr 11, 2000 |
Animation and programming
End of term for Michigan.
Oliver presents his work. Recommended reading: Do Algorithm Animations
Aid Learning? (pdf file)
Marat discusses ToonTalk. Recommended readings:
ToonTalk - An Animated Programming Environment for Children (older but more general) and A Computer Game to Teach Programming (newer but a little too specific).
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| Apr 17, 2000 (Note: MONDAY from 1 to 3, not Tuesday. And we will start on time.) |
Videoconference with other sites
End of term for George Mason.
Room to be announced, but we will meet in Dwinelle.
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| Apr 25, 2000 |
TBD
AERA week. End of term for Georgia. |
| May 2, 2000 |
Project presentations? |