October 2004 — Features
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Enabling Distributed Learning Communities Via Emerging Technologies - Part Two
Summary of part one from the September issue: Emerging devices, tools, media and virtual environments offer opportunities for creating new types of learning communities for students and teachers. The defining quality of a learning community is that there is a culture of learning in which everyone is involved in a collective effort of understanding. Transformational learning of 21st century skills requires a strategy of infusing learning communities throughout students’ lives - orchestrating the contributions of many knowledge sources embedded in real-world settings outside of schools, but with teachers still in central roles as facilitators and interpreters. Such distributed learning communities have many implications for teacher education, induction and professional development. To accomplish major changes in teacher preparation, induction and professional development, we must “walk our talk.” If we believe that teaching should move toward educational models such as distributed learning communities, then we should base its initiatives on similar processes so that the medium of change reinforces the methods.
The first part of this article described a distributed learning community for students based on the emerging technology of multi-user virtual environments. The vignette below depicts an alternative type of distributed learning community - this time based on possible applications of wireless mobile devices to create experiences outside of school that motivate and aid students in developing 21st century skills and knowledge (Partnership for 21st Century Skills 2003). Interfaces for “ubiquitous computing” involve portable wireless devices infusing virtual resources as we move through the real world. The early stages of these “augmented reality” interfaces are characterized by research on the role of “smart objects” and “intelligent contexts” in learning and doing (U.S. Department of Commerce 2003).
The following vignette is based on the concept of “animistic” settings for learning. Animistic beliefs - in which every entity (e.g., trees, dwellings, etc.) is seen as having a resident “spirit” with whom one can interact - have faded from civilization. Now, ubiquitous computing offers a means to create types of animism that are potentially powerful for education. In community-based animistic settings designed for learning, smart objects and intelligent contexts can “dialogue” with participants about their history and purpose.
Augmented Reality and Learning Communities
Alec and Arielle strolled through Harvard Yard on their way to a museum to collect data for their school assignment. Both carried a wireless handheld device (WHD) whose display changed every few feet as they moved past different objects and structures. Also, Arielle, who was predominantly an aural learner, wore a headphone bud so that her WHD could briefly speak to her whenever she was passing something of interest. Every new screen presented an offer from something they were approaching (e.g., an unusual tree, a historic building) to share information about its history and purpose using interactive wireless data transfer. For example, as they approached the “Statue of the Three Lies” (as the sculpture of John Harvard is informally termed), on their handhelds’ screens the statue’s “persona” offered to share with them when he was constructed, whom he represented, and why three distortions of the historical record were involved.
