October 2004 — Features
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Enabling Distributed Learning Communities Via Emerging Technologies - Part Two
Meanwhile, Arielle was looking at dinosaur exhibits to see how the animals’ structures could generate inferences about how they lived. She observed the skeletons, then watched as her WHD superimposed virtual muscles and skin on its display of the skeleton. Arielle’s WHD then offered her a choice of learning about various aspects of that exhibit. She chose the geological record and saw where this skeleton had been discovered. She then received a message from Alec to visit the c'elacanth exhibit for a surprise. Arielle used her WHD to virtually “mark” her explorations, then followed Alec’s suggestion.
Walking back from the museum, Arielle and Alec shared what they had found. Both wondered what learning was like before augmented reality and ubiquitous computing - when objects and locations were mute and inert. How lifeless the world must have been (Dede, Dieterle and Ketelhut, in preparation).
Dimensions of Success
As with the virtual environments’ vignette from the first part of this article, achieving such a future requires changes in teacher education, induction and professional development. For instance, as a crucial dimension of classroom learning communities, Bielaczyc and Collins (1999) identify shifts in centrality, peripherality and identity: “The degree to which people play a central role and are respected by other members of a community determines their sense of identity. ... In a learning communities approach, the central roles are those that most directly contribute to the collective activities and knowledge of the community. However, opportunities exist for all community members to participate to whatever extent is possible, and students working in peripheral roles are also valued for their contributions. Centrality and peripherality are context-dependent. Certain students may have more to contribute at a given time, so a student’s centrality can change over time. As members of a learning community take on different roles and pursue individual interests toward common goals, students develop individual expertise and identities. Because diversity is important, an atmosphere in which students respect each other’s differences needs to develop. In contrast, in most classrooms, students work on the same things and are all expected to reach a base level of understanding. Students tend to form their identity through being measured or by measuring themselves against this base level. Centrality tends to mean those who meet and exceed this base level - those who ‘get it.’ ”
In a “learning communities” model of education, preparing teachers to assess and value the many dimensions of student success, rather than the single metric of minimum proficiency on high-stakes tests, is an important objective for professional development. To help the subpopulations now present in our country’s classrooms reach their full learning potential, building teacher capacity to value diverse perspectives and contributions is vital. This is a much better way than “minimal proficiencies of subpopulations” to conceptualize the dimensions of success that our society should use for educational accountability. The range of perspectives and contributions involved is particularly broad in distributed learning, which draws on multiple types of expertise and cultural knowledge from community resources outside of the school.
