Educational Technology

As educators, you may be skilled at identifying a really good educational product. You can review an educational game and, based on observation and testing (or your own developed intuition), you can know if it is effective and engaging. The more difficult task includes learning how to develop a multimedia product—reviewing early prototypes of a game or animation, and changing it many times so that it meets the learning goals while also engaging potential students. This process often involves dumping many unsuccessful attempts as well as starting over.

This interactive poster session brings together 12 projects using a range of interactive computer technologies to improve science and math learning. The approaches range from interactive simulations to fully-immersive, multi-player games. In addition to increasing communication and collaboration among these researchers, a key goal of this session is to discuss what drives the wide range in approaches to using interactive technologies.

Presenters will discuss the challenges and successes encountered in customizing inquiry science curricula according to the principles of universal design for learning (UDL) and in then enacting those Web-delivered curricula in secondary classrooms.

How should science curriculum developers respond to the changing technological landscape in school and out?

This session will showcase and solicit feedback on a prototype online learning community designed to facilitate collaboration between teachers and scientists. A team of scientists and education researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute developed the learning community as part of the Investigations in Cyber-enabled Education (ICE) Program, a DR K–12 program. The unique learning community is the central component of an online course for secondary teachers.

The capabilities of interactive, Web-based media offer approaches that can be especially valuable to students and teachers who find STEM content challenging to learn. Through the lenses of both general education and special education, the presenters are designing new products to be effective for all teachers and students. Web-based tools link multiple visual representations and allow immediate feedback to teachers and students. See and discuss free tools that Dynabook and SmartGraphs are developing.

In this session, panelists from five NSF-funded gaming projects will discuss ways in which digital game-based learning can enable learner-led exploration, taking games beyond the "quiz" model many educators still think of.