October 2004 — Features
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Enabling Distributed Learning Communities Via Emerging Technologies - Part Two
Alec was curious about a particular tree whose age and foliage were impressive. When he accepted its offer to interact, the screen presented information about when it was planted and why, what species of tree it was, and how much longer it might live. The tree also offered to show Alec an image of what Harvard Yard looked like at the time it was planted. Responding to any of these pieces of information led to further prompts offering more information, images, animations, and links to various Web pages about history and botany.
Arielle chose to interact with an interesting building. Through a series of menus and prompts, it offered to describe when and why it was built, what the Yard looked like at that time, its architectural style and architect, the various purposes that it had served over the years, and its current purpose and inhabitants. If she chose, Arielle also could view other people’s messages regarding their feelings and stories about the building, including suggestions about interesting things and people inside. The structure also indicated that another person in the Yard was currently learning about it and offered to ask whether the individual wanted to share impressions with Arielle.
Inside the museum, Alec and Arielle split up to work on their individual assignments. When Alec typed his research topic into the museum computer, it loaded a building map into his WHD with flashing icons showing exhibits on that subject. At each exhibit, Alec could capture a digital image on his WHD, download data about the artifacts and links to related Web sites, as well as access alternative interpretations about the exhibit. His WHD automatically supplied information about Alec’s age and background to ensure that the material he received was appropriate in native language, reading level, conceptual level, developmental stage and learning style.
While the museum-supplied information was interesting, Alec always enjoyed the comments posted about each exhibit by other students. He sometimes added a few remarks of his own to the ongoing discussion. By adding his remarks on-site, Alec gained permission to join the exhibit’s discussion group so that he could continue the conversation off-site and between visits. Seeing a cool artifact related to Arielle’s topic, Alec paused to link to her WHD, then sent her device a digital image of the exhibit and directional information on its location.
Alec’s favorite exhibits were those augmented by virtual environments. For example, at a panorama showing the bones found at a tar pit, Alec’s WHD depicted a virtual reconstruction of the dinosaurs which were trapped at that prehistoric location. In the virtual environment, he could assume the perspective of each species and walk, fly or swim through its typical habitat. Other types of exhibit-linked virtual environments enabled “time travel” to show how a particular spot on the Earth’s surface had changed over the eons. For each epoch, Alec used virtual probes on his WHD to collect data about temperature, air pressure, elevation and pollutants.
In another part of the museum, sensory probes were available that allowed his WHD to collect data via interacting with simulations involving light, temperature and motion. For example, Alec could manipulate the carbon dioxide levels or yearly rainfall, as well as monitor how plants and animals react to the changes in the environment. In a physics microworld, he could alter the gravitational constant to see how this affected the solar system, using probeware (temperature, light intensity and motion detectors) to measure changes in the sun and planets.
