Contents

Science Education
Virtual Solar System
Virtual Gorilla
Elementary Ed.
Elem. & Secondary

Science Education: Elementary and Secondary Education

URL: http://www.activeink.net

ActiveInk.net is an educational e-portal designed to support student scientific investigations into the natural world. In particular, this curriculum supports students learning about environmental science concepts and issues.

Context	The ActiveInk Network is an Austin, TX company that makes web-based, project-based curriculum for K-16 schools. In the Spring and Summer of 2000, I worked as part of a team that designed and developed curriculum for use in six four-week modules as a part of my summer employment.
Conditions	I worked as a part of an eight member design team and five-member research team led by Dr. Sasha Barab. We collaborated with executives, graphic designers, marketers, subject matter experts, and computer programmers. We designed the curriculum space, wrote all of the text-based resources and wrote functional specifications for all of the graphics, animations, and computer-based tools. We designed these tools so that they might be easily developed using an object-oriented approach. In two months, we developed five environmental science modules (air quality, earth systems, wildflowers, graffiti, waste management), working within ActiveInk's developmental budget and time constraints.
Scope	We started with some existing materials, and either adopted, rewrote, re-organized, or created materials in order to make them more consistent with a project based approach to learning. As the ActiveInk curriculum was implemented, it was used by over 10,000 students across the country, ranging from rural Texas to New York City. I have examined the implementation of the air quality curriculum in a high school classroom and taught ActiveInk's five-week wildflower unit to two classes of 4th grade students.
Role	I was a curriculum designer, usability tester, and researcher in this project. I add a strong IST focus (including analysis, design, development, and production techniques and concepts) to this project. In particular, I added an understanding of how functional vs. formal specifications operate, the strengths and weaknesses of various usability testing methodologies, how to use rapid prototyping techniques to meet harried production schedules. However, my strongest addition to this project was my content understanding of the underlying chemistry and earth science as I was the lead designer for those curriculum modules.

Project Papers:

Squire, K., MaKinster, J., Barnett, M., Leuhman, A., & Barab, S. A. (2001). Designed curriculum and local culture: Acknowledging the primacy of classroom culture. Manuscript submitted for publication in Science Education.

Conference Presentations

Barnett, M., MaKinster, J., Barab, S., Squire, K., & Kelly, C. (2001, March). Addressing the challenges of designing an on-line environment to support student learning through the use of inscriptions and technology-rich resources. In E. Toth (chair), Using online modeling tools to support knowing-in-the-making. Symposium conducted at the annual conference of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching, St. Louis, MO.

Barab S. A., Kelly C., Squire K., Barnett M., & MaKinster J. (2001, April). Designed curriculum and local culture: Acknowledging the primacy of classroom culture. In S. Barab (chair), Building sustainable science curriculum: Acknowledging and accommodating local adaptation. Symposium conducted at the annual meeting of the American Education Research Association, Seattle, WA.

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