Personal Inquiry: Supporting school science investigations with personal technologies across formal and informal settings

Add to your list(s) Download to your calendar using vCal

• Professor Mike Sharples (University of Nottingham)
• Monday 18 January 2010, 17:00-18:30
• GS5, Donald McIntyre Building, Faculty of Education, 184 Hills Road, Cambridge.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Bryony Horsley-Heather.

All welcome

Mike Sharples is Professor of Learning Sciences and Director of the Learning Sciences Research Institute at the University of Nottingham. He inaugurated the mLearn conference series and is President of the International Association for Mobile Learning. His current projects include: PI: Personal Inquiry, a collaboration with the Open University UK to develop 21st century science learning between formal and informal settings; a national Digital Economy Hub on pervasive and contextual technologies; and research into curriculum and pedagogy to inform the UK Government’s Harnessing Technology Strategy. Recent projects include MyArtSpace for mobile learning in museums and the L-Mo project with Sharp Laboratories of Europe to develop handheld technologies for language learning. His publications cover the areas of interactive systems design, artificial intelligence and educational technology.

ABSTRACT :

The Personal Inquiry project, funded by the ESRC and EPSRC research councils, is investigating the value of ‘scripted inquiry learning’, where children aged 11-14 investigate science topics with classmates by carrying out explorations between their classroom, homes and outdoor locations guided by a personal toolkit. The toolkit, running on small portable computers, is being designed to enable the children to understand themselves and the world in which they live, through a scientific process of gathering and assessing evidence, conducting experiments and engaging in informed debate. Their activities are based around topic themes – Myself, My Environment, My Community – that engage young learners in investigating their health, diet and fitness, their immediate environment and their wider surroundings. I shall describe how scripted personal technologies can be designed to support effective learning across transitions between formal and informal settings and report the results of trials from the second year of the project. These investigated the children’s process of science inquiry, adoption and use of the technology, and compared with a control group changes in domain and science inquiry knowledge and attitudes to science. Issues include: the nature of personal inquiry, supporting the continuity of learning across settings, how personal should an inquiry be, and problems of conducting research in technology-enabled learning outside the classroom.

This talk is part of the List Closed series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• GS5, Donald McIntyre Building, Faculty of Education, 184 Hills Road, Cambridge

Note that ex-directory lists are not shown.