SimCalc Classroom Connectivity Project
|
Related Projects
NetCalc: Kids Using Hand-helds and Thinking about Math.
Deborah Tatar, Jeremy Roschelle, Phil Vahey (SRI
International) and Jennifer Moless (San Jose Unified School District)
The
NetCalc Project is exploring the use of SimCalc, a tool for teaching the
mathematics of change and variation, on handheld machines. One portion
of the project has focused on developing activities and curricula
utilizing infrared communication between individual handheld computers
and between hand-helds and a central PC server. Working with three 8th
grade algebra classes, we have been exploring the range of ways in which
a system of this type can participate in classroom practices. By
deliberately keeping most coordination in the social rather than the
technological realm, we provide sharing but still permit emergent
classroom choreographies; whether directed by explicit request of the
teacher, by custom or in response to particular needs, students and
their technology can move between work configurations with little
additional burden compared to that of normal classroom practice. The
teacher can engage in such everyday classroom requests as asking
everyone who is finished with a certain task to come to the front of the
room, asking students to "find someone to work with," or asking students
to turn an exercise designed for two people into one in which three can
participate. At the level of specific planned activities, initial
results suggest that some activities work better than others. Evidence
about the success of particular activities is found in several measures
of student engagement including positive evidence such as expressions of
discovery, and negative evidence such as the failure to become
distracted under provocation. Current indications are that activities
work better if they are (1) more aligned with teacher and student
expectations for the structure of the class and (2) more accommodating
towards the social goals of the students.
|
|
|
