Towards making Grid-enabled
schools e-Science usable and re-usable for and with teachers
In Brief
Our experience gained on the recent Ambient Wood, Sense
and e-Science
research projects highlighted the engagement and enthusiasm with which
students embraced active-hands on research in an outdoor setting using
mobile technologies, combined with reflective, analytical and
collaborative activities. These activities were based around data
visualisation and collaboration with remote others through familiar
social communication tools that were brought into the classroom for
educational uses. Although teachers accept these worthwhile
experiences, we and they acknowledge the costs involved: the
time-intensive preparation required to resource and run these
activities and this project seeks to understand further the challenges
faced.
In this two-year project, due to begin January
2007, we will work with teachers and learners - locally, nationally and
globally - to create a usable and reusable toolkit that supports
teachers in creating new, usable learning experiences for themselves
and others in a time-efficient manner. We will research the kinds of
resources required of school ICT and support infrastructures, along
with the added challenges of co-ordinating and collaborating with
remote teachers, learners and scientists.
Our overall guiding objectives are:
- To develop and support new e-Science
communities involving science teachers and their pupils and in so doing
to explore the barriers and usability issues that face the designers of
e-Science systems
- To expose young people, who will necessarily
include the scientists of the future, to the possibilities of e-Science
so that they will see e-Science as a natural way of engaging in
scientific research.
- To increase our understanding of the ways in
which new knowledge is formulated and understood within an educational
context supported by e-Science technology.
Recent activities:
We have been running our
DIY
Energy sessions
- generating electricity to charge an iPod using sustainable
energy methods - at Brighton Science Festival's White Heat Day
at
Hove Park School, and as part of Science and Engineering Week 2008.
See our
learners' blog here.
Our
next teacher workshop is at the
London
Science Learning Centre
on 21st April 2008 at 16:00. Science teachers and technicians
welcome to attend this free event, book direct on course L247 or
contact us for more information.
Publications
- Wyeth, P., Smith, H., Ng, K.H.,
Fitzpatrick, G., Luckin, R., Walker, K., Good, J., Underwood,
J.
and Benford, S. (2008) Learning Through Treasure Hunting: The Role of
Mobile Devices. To appear at Mobile Learning '08, 11-13
April.
- Smith, H., Ng, K.H., Walker,
K., Underwood, J., Heldt, S., Fitzpatrick, G., Luckin, R., Good, J.,
Wyeth, P. and Benford, S. (2007) Reconstructing an Informal Mobile
Learning Experience with Multiple Data Streams. Proceedings
of
workshop on "Research methods in informal and mobile
learning: How to get the data we really want", WLE
Centre, Institute of Education, London, 14 December 2007.
Available here.
People
Hilary
Smith, Interact Lab;
Dr Geraldine
Fitzpatrick, Interact Lab;
Dr
Judith
Good, Ideas Lab;
Partners
London Knowledge
Lab, UK: Prof Rose Luckin; Josh Underwood;
Kevin Walker
Nottingham University,
UK: Prof Steve Benford; Dr Marina Ng
University of
Queensland, Australia: Dr Peta Wyeth
Hove Park School,
and Portslade Community
College, Brighton.
