Saturday, October 25, 2008

Learning Journey to LSL @ NIE on 22 October 2008

Purpose of Visit:
To learn what are some innovative ICT-related projects that LSL is involved in.
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There were 4 presentations:
(1) Game-based Learning (with Centauri 7)
(2) Ideas Project - building a knowledge creating community
(3) Group Scribbles for Rapid Collaborative Knowledge Building
(4) Teachable agents

Some points gathered from the sharing...
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(1) Game-based Learning: Developing Students’ process learning skills and deep understanding of electromagnetism through the medium of a 3D simulation game (Dr Chee Yam San)

It's a research on game-based learning.
The game world that the project operates in is Centauri 7.

Briefly, the mission of the pupils is to escape from the planet. They have to clear various kinds of electromagnetic fields (in total 3). In the course of doing so, they have to learn about the various kinds of electromagnetic fields and their characteristics, etc.

In a nutshell...
  • Learning on situated practice
  • Learning in 1st person - the learner is immersed in the environment, they are represented by an avatar in the game world
  • It's not learning about... but learning how to, learning to be
  • In the process, learners are engaged in scientific inquiry - on their own as well as through group sense-making discussions (facilitated by the teacher)
  • Deep learning takes place
  • Execution: about 18 Sec 3 pupils involved in the 12h project - as part of the elective programme that took place in 1.5h sessions.
  • Assessment: MCQ and artefacts. For the artefacts, learners come up with a manual to explain how they escape, which includes explaining how the field workds.

Source of image: http://lsl.nie.edu.sg/m26.htm

More information

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(2) Ideas First: Developing a Model for Creating Knowledge Building Classroom in a school (Dr Kate Bielacyze)

  • It's about building up a Knowledge Add ImageCreating Community
  • Key point: Collective responsibility for idea improvement
  • It emphasizes the importance fo socialising students into the world of work with knowledge (Carl Bereiter)
How learners are engaged... (briefly...)


  • Sharing of ideas
  • Multiple perspectives
  • Cognitive conflict and resolution
  • Reflection
  • Synthesis – sustained improvement of ideas

The ICT Platform is basically a platform to facilitate discussion forum with built-in scaffolds. It comes in words or short phrases to guide the students in presenting their view points, or ask questions, etc.

More information


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(3) Rapid Collaborative Knowledge Building in the Classroom (Dr Chen Wenli & Dr Looi Chee Kit)

  • Rapid Collaborative Knowledge Building (RCLB)
  • 10 Principles of RCKB
    (1) distributed cognition
    (2) volunteerism
    (3) spontaneous participation
    (4) multimodal expression
    (5) higher-order thinking
    (6) improvable ideas
    (7) idea diversity
    (8) epistemic agency
    (9) democratized knowledge
    (10) symmetric knowledge

How Group Scribbles works (technically)...

  • electronic Post-its operating in a two-paned window.
  • Lower pane - user's personal work area, or "private board" while Upper pane is the public area.
  • In the private board is a virtual pad that provides the user fresh "scribble sheets" on which can be left digital ink (e.g., a freehand drawing) or typed text. Scribbles authored in this manner may be shared with others by moving them to the public board in the upper pane.
  • To move a scribble to the public board, the user simply drags it up from the private board and drops it on the public board.
  • Users may interact with public scribbles in a variety of ways, such as browsing scribbles' content, repositioning scribbles, or taking a scribble from the public board into their private space.
  • Click HERE for screenshots (from Group Scribbles website)

Some learning points shared in the implementation of the project

  • Pre-implementation work: This includes enculturating learners - engaging them activities that require them to generate ideas and scribble them onto hardcopy post-its, putting them up at common spaces for sharing and discussion.
  • Develop relevant protocols and social etiquettes - for instance, getting pupils to focus critiquing each others' ideas rather than on the individuals.

More information

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(4) Teachable agents

Key Principle:

Teaching someone else is a better way to learn, as it requires learners to organise their thinking and figure out the connections between the concpets.

In a nutshell...

  • teachable agents are computer-based learning programme
  • learners teach agent using visual representations (ie. concept maps)
  • agent performs based on teaching (generic AI algorithms draw inferences)
  • learners could revise agent to do better
  • Click HERE for Overview

More information

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