Reuven M. Lerner, Sharona T. Levy, and Uri Wilensky

Northwestern University & University of HaifaChais Conference

February 10th, 2010

Connected Modeling:Design and Analysis

of the Modeling Commons

Models

•Model: Reified theory about a system

•Often used in science and engineering

•Anatomy, molecules, DNA

•Also mathematical models

•Economics, cognitive science

Modeling and Constructionism

•Purpose of modeling: Construction and revision of conceptual understanding (Jonassen, 2006)

•Papert: Best way to construct knowledge is by creating sharing artifacts (1991)

•Modeling has been shown to help learning (Goldstone & Wilensky, 2008; Blikstein & Wilensky, 2008)

NetLogo

NetLogo

•Wilensky, 1999

•http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo

•100,000 users worldwide

•Includes 400+ models, code examples

•Associated curricula (ProbLab, Connected Chemistry, MaterialSim, NIELS, BEAGLE)

Building vs. sharing

•NetLogo is successful for building...

•... but existing community structures are not promoting sharing.

•Sharing in journals, Web — not community

•netlogo-users: Only 5.7% of 9,696 messages included a model (over 7 years)

•Limited community models (274 in 7 years)

Interactions are vital

•Vygotsky: Learning leads to development when “interacting with people in his environment and in collaboration with his peers.” (1978, p. 90)

•Lave & Wenger (1991): Legitimate Peripheral Participation, CoP

•Schön (1983): “Reflection in Action”

Collaboration is vital

•A skill and a perspective (Kolodner and Guzdial, 1996)

•Much of our culture depends on collaboration and remixing (Lessig, 2008)

•CSCL sees collaborative communities as a learning paradigm (Stahl, 2006; Koschmann, 1994)

My research

•Encourage sharing, collaboration, communities of practice

•Encourage communication with models, not about them

•Identify patterns that emerge from such interactions

Modeling Commons

Modeling Commons

•Wikipedia of modeling

•View, share, collaboratively build models

•Run models in the browser

•Create families of “branched” models

•Discussion, requests for help

•Social tagging

Research to date•Round #1: Winter-spring 2008

•12 people, 3 interviews, 4 written reports

•Concentrated on design

•Round #2: Fall 2008

•24 people, 10 interviews

•Combination of design and usage

Research to date

•Round #3: Spring 2009

•36 participants in 3 classes at 2 universities

•Total of 90 models uploaded

Design Research

•Clinical interviews (Ginsburg, 1997) and defined tasks (Nielsen, 2000) to improve design:

•Improve system usability

•Reduce threshold to sharing, collaboration, discussion

Home pages

•Users consistently reported a “lost” feeling

•“It would be nice ... to find out what models were new, or what models there had been recent activity on. Both, actually... here’s a new model, and people are talking about this model.”

Solution: Dynamic page

Your modelsYour models Most-viewedMost-viewed

Your tagsYour tags

Most Most downloadeddownloadedRequests for Requests for

helphelp

Privacy

•8/10 subjects said “sharing my models with others” has importance of 4 or 5 (out of 5)

•However, many expressed reservations for classwork or work-in-progress

•“...I wouldn’t have been comfortable, and the people I work with wouldn’t have been comfortable — showing the models to the world in an unfinished form”

Groups, permissions

Groups, permissions

Logfile analysis

•Every action in the Commons is logged

•Allows for analysis, understanding without looking over users’ shoulders

Logfile analysis: LPP*

•Predicted by Lave, Wenger (1991)

•3 neither viewed nor uploaded

•8 did view, but never uploaded

•15 viewed before uploading

•9 uploaded before viewing

•Some LPP behavior is seen in 63% (n = 36)

*Legitimate Peripheral Participation

Networks•Explicit vs. implicit networks

•Networks of people

•via models, discussions, tags

•Graphs are from one university class, where students were instructed to tag and discuss models, as well as upload them

•Some measures from Krackhardt (1994)

Explicit membership

Models + creators

Connectedness = 0.097

Hierarchy = 0.271

Models + taggers

Connectedness = 0.656

Hierarchy = 0.0426

Models + commenters

Connectedness = 0.862

Hierarchy = 0.085

Models + all actions

Connectedness = 0.731

Hierarchy = 0.030

Social networking•Explicit group membership does not

necessarily indicate actual ties

•Connectedness is a useful comparison only when the number of nodes is the same

•Multiple communication channels would appear to be the key to a truly connected graph (and thus community)

Future work

•3 courses already used it; another soon

•Refining and extending logfile, network analysis methods

•Explore: http://modelingcommons.org/

•Soon will be announced to the world

Acknowledgements

•Prof. Uri Wilensky

•Dr. Sharona T. Levy

•Members of the CCL

•Researchers, students, and TAs who participated