Title: Interactive On-line Texts
Performer(s):
Stephen Garland
MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
545 Technology Square
Cambridge, MA 202139
John V. Guttag
MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
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Cluster: SNAIR
Contact Information:
Phone: 617-253-1947
Fax: 617-253-8460
email: garland@lcs.mit.edu
Phone: 617-253-6022
Fax: 617-253-8460
email: guttag@lcs.mit.edu
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1. Instructional Focus:
Content areas/topics: Initially mathematics and AFROTC; potentially a wide variety of content areas.
Process skills: interactive, modeling, individualized, problem solving.
2. Target Population: Secondary school teachers and their students.
3. Summary Description: The goal of the project is to develop an architecture and tools for construction on-line texts that are:
- active, so that students can manipulate them as part of a hands-on learning experience,
- customizable, so that teachers can adapt them to suit individual needs,
- connected to the information infrastructure, so that examples can use the most recent data or data of interest to particular students,
- easy to build and maintain, so that components can be upgraded as technology and third-party software improve.
The products of the project, as currently funded, will be technical resources that can be used to develop materials for use in schools: a software architecture that defines hopw third-party software can be integrated into texts produced by authoring tools, and a customization language that permits instructors to modify texts produced with these tools. Preliminary versions of these resources will be available at the end of the first year of the project.
Two prototype units from customizable, interactive on-line texts will also be available at the end of the first year of the project. One will be a unit designed to teach students how to solve logical lpuzzles as part of the secondary school mathematics curriculum. Another will be an on-line version of a chapter from the AFROTC flight training manual.
4. Training and Staff Development:
- Teacher prerequisite skills/knowledge needed: General computer skills.
- Student prerequisite skills needed: General computer skills.
- Training needed/provided: None specified.
- Technical support needed/provided: None specified.
5. Technological/Resources Needed: PC/Windows. The software arcchitecture and customization language will not require any resources beyond those required by the authoring tools and third-party software with which they are used.
6. Intended Outcomes:
Students: Students will be able to use software to provide new, hands-on methods to solve problems.
Teachers: Teacher will be able to customize software tools to suit their particular curriculum needs, e.g. by generating new problems or integrating on-line sources of data into a problem. They will be able to track their students' progress.
7. Instructional Time Required: Depends on the indivdual teacher.
8. Role of the Pilot Teacher(s): Teachers will learn to customize software and then apply their skills by customizing software tools for use in their classrooms.
9. Example(s) of the Use of this Product (Scenario): Students in mathmatics classes are trying to find solutions to problems, each of which have a set of constraints. They have access to the software tools developed in this project.
Mary is trying to prove propertis about a figure satisfying the constraint "if a triangle is constrained to be isosceles, then the bisectors of its base angles have the same length." She uses a drawing tool to enable her to construct and manipulate the geometric figure.
Peter is working on an algebra problem which asks, "If John rides due north from school at 4 mph starting at 3 pm and Steve rides due east from school at 3 mph, also starting at 3 pm, at what time will they be 5 kilometers apart?" He uses animation tools to visualize how the action evolves.
May is working on a logical puzzle which requires her to match up individua;ls with attributes given several constraints, like "Ann's husband drives to work with Mrs. Brown. Bob does not own a car." She uses software with a tool kit helping her to visualize the relationships between the various individuals.
Their teacher is able to monitor their progress to determine whether they:
- correctly captured the constraints inherent in the problem (e.g., the construction the the geometric figure, the relationshiop between miles and kilometers, or the consequences of some particular fact),
- used all the information in the problem statement (e.g., the time of departure),
- used information learned at other times (e.g., the Phythagorean therem).
As a result of what he observes, the teacher makes PeterŐs problem easier by removing the element requiring him to convert miles to kilometers. (If Peter seemed to require more challenge, the teacher could have added to the difficulty by having Steve and John leave at different times.)
