participatory simulations: immersive learning environments emotionally engaging, “first-person”...

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Participatory Simulations: immersive learning environments Emotionally engaging, “first-person” experience Identification with and use of tangible objects • Collaborative participation and theory-building Synergy between physical and virtual worlds (Vanessa Stevens Colella) Thinking Tag: The top Tag has met two people and is not sick. The bottom Tag has met six people and is sick, as indicated by the five red LEDs.

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Page 1: Participatory Simulations: immersive learning environments Emotionally engaging, “first-person” experience Identification with and use of tangible objects

Participatory Simulations: immersive learning environments

• Emotionally engaging, “first-person” experience

• Identification with and use of tangible objects

• Collaborative participation and theory-building

• Synergy between physical and virtual worlds

(Vanessa Stevens Colella) Thinking Tag: The top Tag has met two people and is not sick. The bottom Tag has met six people and is sick, as indicated by the five red LEDs.

Page 2: Participatory Simulations: immersive learning environments Emotionally engaging, “first-person” experience Identification with and use of tangible objects

Augmenting intelligence through mediated experience

Facilitates more complex simulationsRemember and monitor more informationIdentify complex patterns

Enables you to move back and forth between the “computer” and the “personal” experienceAlternative representationsVarious learning styles

Supports early attempts at formalizing simulationsSurface assumptionsDevelop coherent mental models

(Vanessa Stevens Colella)

Page 3: Participatory Simulations: immersive learning environments Emotionally engaging, “first-person” experience Identification with and use of tangible objects

The HubNet Mission:Systems dynamics and complexity learning for ALL students

The problems our society faces are increasingly systemic in character

The study of dynamic systems stands as a new form of literacy for all, a new way of describing, viewing and symbolizing phenomena in the world

The world of dynamic experience and the world of static school representations stands as one source of student alienation from the current curriculum

Page 4: Participatory Simulations: immersive learning environments Emotionally engaging, “first-person” experience Identification with and use of tangible objects

The HubNet Learning Problem:Deterministic/centralized mindset

Students have considerable difficulties in making sense of complex systems—emergent phenomena and global patterns that arise from distributed interaction

Participatory simulations have previously been used in the social sciences but not in math and science

Page 5: Participatory Simulations: immersive learning environments Emotionally engaging, “first-person” experience Identification with and use of tangible objects

The HubNet Learning Problem:What is different about math and science?

• Lack of close integration of participatory simulation activities with modeling/analysis technologies

• Class discussions need to be supported with functions such as simulation replay, construction of alternative scenarios and assumptions, and alternative visualizations

• Technology must be available to support student participation

Page 6: Participatory Simulations: immersive learning environments Emotionally engaging, “first-person” experience Identification with and use of tangible objects

HubNet: A Participatory Simulation Architechure

“Innovative networked classroom-based technologies connect learners’ evolving intuitions with powerful tools for modeling and analysis”

“Learners working in the networked environment make overt and visible their strategies in relation to generating different kinds of emergent behavior”

“These tools enable them to analytically understand these systems, in effect working with the mathematics of change without needing to master the formalisms of differential equations.”

Page 7: Participatory Simulations: immersive learning environments Emotionally engaging, “first-person” experience Identification with and use of tangible objects

HubNet

The network-based activity will help make visible learners’ ideas and ways of organization their experiences, which should significantly advance our understanding of these forms of emergent learning

Page 8: Participatory Simulations: immersive learning environments Emotionally engaging, “first-person” experience Identification with and use of tangible objects

Aggregate Modeling:the flow of bunnies (or beer)

The first kind of tool enables the user to conceptualize the system as "flows" and "accumulations." For example, a changing population of rabbits might be modeled as an "accumulation" (like water accumulated in a sink) with rabbit birth rates as a "flow" into the population and rabbit death rates as a flow out (like the flow of water into and out of the sink). Other populations or dynamics--e.g., the presence of "accumulations" of predators-- could affect these flows. In the limit of the continuous case, this means dynamic systems are written in the language of differential equations.

(http://www.ccl.sesp.northwestern.edu/ps/part_sims.html)

Page 9: Participatory Simulations: immersive learning environments Emotionally engaging, “first-person” experience Identification with and use of tangible objects

Object-Based Modeling:be a bunny

The second kind of tool enables the user to model systems directly at the level of the individual elements of the system. For example, our rabbit population could be rendered as a collection of individual rabbits each of which has associated probabilities of reproducing or dying.

The object-based approach, while perhaps less efficient at certain kinds of analysis (e.g., translating its results into algebraic form), has the advantage of being a natural entry point for learners. It may well be easier to generate rules for individual rabbits than to describe the flows of rabbit populations. This is because the learners can literally see the rabbits and can control the individual rabbit's behavior. New computational media make this object-based approach practical as a tool for modeling population dynamics and other forms of highly interactive emergent phenomena.

(http://www.ccl.sesp.northwestern.edu/ps/part_sims.html)

Page 10: Participatory Simulations: immersive learning environments Emotionally engaging, “first-person” experience Identification with and use of tangible objects

HubNet as Modeling Environment:be a bunny and watch the beer flow

HubNet can itself be a powerful modeling tool. In particular, HubNet can be used as a new kind of object-based modeling environment.

In contrast to languages such as StarLogo, Hubnet, as a modeling engine, depends on each of its nodes -- each calculator can be a turtle. While for very large numbers of turtles, StarLogo would be much more efficient, for smaller numbers (classroom-size) the advantage of students being able to test their intuitive behavior and to participate directly in the simulations has powerful learning possibilities.

Because HubNet allows the user flexibility about what to pass from the calculators to the Hub, many hybrid architectures are possible as well. If the calculators pass average or aggregate quantities to the Hub, then a new mixed object-based hybrid architecture results. These new architectures open doors to many new kinds of simple classroom activities.

Page 11: Participatory Simulations: immersive learning environments Emotionally engaging, “first-person” experience Identification with and use of tangible objects

HubNet: Gridlock

Meaningful scenario

Real-time interaction

Each student has an intersection

Students try different strategies, from traffic cops to smart cars

Students then analyze their strategies for a report of recommendations to the mayor of Gridlock

The end report incorporates both object-based and aggregate analysis

Traffic flow with no lights

Accidents quickly result Lights synchronized

Uncoordinated traffic

Page 12: Participatory Simulations: immersive learning environments Emotionally engaging, “first-person” experience Identification with and use of tangible objects

Other HubNet Calculator Models:

Disease Elevators Function Activity

People Molecules Regression

Page 13: Participatory Simulations: immersive learning environments Emotionally engaging, “first-person” experience Identification with and use of tangible objects

MIT PDA Participatory Simulations Site http://education.mit.edu/pda/index.htm

Page 14: Participatory Simulations: immersive learning environments Emotionally engaging, “first-person” experience Identification with and use of tangible objects

Activity: NetLogo Participatory Simulation

Set-up & Orientation – 15 minutes

Play! – 20 minutes

Post Your Reflections

Ken: Future vision and CodeIT

Whole-class discussion of posted reflections and general reflections

Page 15: Participatory Simulations: immersive learning environments Emotionally engaging, “first-person” experience Identification with and use of tangible objects

Activity: NetLogo Participatory Simulation

Group Roles:1 Teacher (server)2-4 Students (clients)1-2 Observers[with substitutions if necessary]

 Reference: Guide to Computer PSAshttp://ccl.northwestern.edu/ps/guide/comp-

part-sims-guide.html

Page 16: Participatory Simulations: immersive learning environments Emotionally engaging, “first-person” experience Identification with and use of tangible objects

HubNet: A Participatory Simulation Architechure

“Innovative networked classroom-based technologies connect learners’ evolving intuitions with powerful tools for modeling and analysis”

“Learners working in the networked environment make overt and visible their strategies in relation to generating different kinds of emergent behavior”

“These tools enable them to analytically understand these systems, in effect working with the mathematics of change without needing to master the formalisms of differential equations.”