Newsletter

July 2016 Volume 2 - Issue 7

Use Models and Simulations to Explore Complex Systems and Issues by Nathan Smith, Utah State University

Models and simulations push learning and engagement up a few notches. I remember sitting in my high school math classes trying to understand the

formula the teacher put on the board. I could work the problem, using the formula - but I had no idea why it worked. No visualization in my head. Have

you experienced that?

I believe one reason children love video games so much is that they immerse them in a simulation. It

almost feels real. In fact, technology keeps moving them

to be more realistic. Just think about the difference between the first video game, Pong, and those currently on the market. Technology has moved forward in amazing ways. Can we capture this in education?

I believe virtual reality can be an extremely powerful, immersive expe-rience for students (and teachers). On this page, I’ve provided a few example videos of what it can do. I believe you’re going to see this technology explode into gaming and education.

We’re beginning to see this in the Goo-gle Chrome browser with 360 degree videos, and 3D videos. Your mobile device becomes a window into a video world - any which way you turn, the vid-eo rotates to let you view the world from that angle. (Have a look for yourself in your chrome browser - here) Also, have a look at Google VR - a new platform for high quality, mobile virtual reality.

One of the rapidly expanding technol-ogies that could have an impact on education is virtual reality. Watch the TED talk below to see how one inventor wants to improve science education.

e-Textbooks are becoming more popu-lar. The CK-12 site has them for free. e-textbooks can im-merse the student more deep-ly than a regular textbook can, by adding video, simulations, motion graphics, interactive quizzes, and more. If you’d like to experience a great set of e-textbooks for free - these work in iBooks on Macs and iOS devices - try Edward O.

Video: 5 Futuristic Inventions that are freaking awesome. Watch the first one

- 0:07 - VicoVR - http://vicovr.com - An innovative full-body 3D virtual reality

gaming system that is highly compatible. Experience full-body tracking VR

world like never more.

Video: Tilt Brush: Painting from a new perspective (1:04) - Tilt Brush lets you paint in 3D space with virtual reality. Unleash your creativity with three-dimensional brush strokes, stars, light, and even fire. Your room is your canvas. Your palette is your imagination. The possibilities are endless.

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Wilson’s Life on Earth series. This 7 book series on biology is an amazing example of what a textbook can be.

What follows are a few suggestions of other technologies that could be used as models and simulations to explore complex systems and processes.

CK-12 is committed to providing free access to open-source content (often called Open Education Resources or OER) and technology tools that empower students as well as teachers to enhance and experiment with different learning styles, resourc-es, levels of competence, and circumstances. Here is a link to their vision statement - it’s worth skimming through it.

CK-12’s collection of resources include PLIX textbooks. These are interactive, and contain many simulations. Explore this a little. How could a technology resource such as this help your class-room?

Article: 106,000 free teacher-created digital textbooks hit the web - eSchoolNews.

If you’d like more information about Open Education Resources, visit my OER website, Creative Commons, M.I.T OpenCourseWare, YouTube Education, and the Open-CourseWare Consortium!

Celestia - The free space simulation that lets you explore our universe in three dimensions. Celestia runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.

Unlike most planetarium software, Celestia doesn’t confine you to the surface of the Earth. You can travel throughout the solar system, to any of over 100,000 stars, or even beyond the galaxy. All movement in Celestia is seamless; the exponential zoom feature lets you explore space across a huge range of scales, from galaxy clusters down to spacecraft only a few meters across. A ‘point-and-goto’ interface makes it simple to navigate through the universe to the object you want to visit. Celestia is expandable. Celestia comes with a large catalog of stars, galax-ies, planets, moons, asteroids, comets, and spacecraft. If that’s not enough, you can download dozens of easy to install add-ons with more objects. The Celestia Motherload is another site where Celestia fans create add-ons for the program.

Stellarium - is a free open source planetarium for your comput-er. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope. It is being used in planetari-um projectors. Just set your coordinates and go.

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Alien Earths - Build Your Own Solar System - Test Out Gravity - Planet Families is a fun, interactive gravity simulation tool. You can drag planets and stars from the “toolbox” at the top of the screen, and they start revolving around the central sun. Depend-ing where you place them, they will either achieve stable orbits, or gravity may ing them out of the system altogether, or worse - be destroyed. Go play around with gravity! While there, try out some of the other simulations!

National Library of Virtual Manipulatives - At the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives, you’ll find activities for every area of math at every grade level. Manipulatives allow students to visually examine, explore and develop concepts. Need to teach shapes to preschoolers, for example? Try the Attribute Blocks, which challenge students to sort virtual objects. Work-ing on functions with middle schoolers? Drop numbers into the function machine to identify the pattern. The many online ma-nipulatives include content in numbers and operations, algebra, geometry, measurement, and data analysis and probability.

PHet Interactive Simulations - Founded in 2002 by Nobel Laureate Carl Wieman, the PhET Interactive Simulations project at the University of Colorado Boulder creates free interactive math and science simulations. PhET sims are based on extensive education research and engage students through an intuitive, game-like environment where students learn through explora-tion and discovery.

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FreeCol is a turn-based strategy game based on the old

game Colonization, and similar to Civilization. The ob-

jective of the game is to create an independent nation.

You start with only a few colonists defying the stormy

seas in their search for new land. Will you guide them

on the Colonization of a New World?

WolfQuest is a 3D wildlife simulation video game about

gray wolves and the ecology of Yellowstone National

Park. Play as a lone wolf, with a mate, or in a pack. In

single-player games, learn how to hunt elk, communi-

cate with other wolves, find a mate, establish a den and

territory, raise pups, and embark on a perilous journey

to a summering site. In multiplayer games, join togeth-

er with friends to explore the wilderness and hunt elk,

and raise pups together!

Message from Nathan Smith: I am currently developing a new 3 credit hour course to begin Fall Semester 2016 at Utah State University - Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences 5500 - Technology Integration and Innovation in Education. I believe a course on technology integration in education mustn’t focus primarily on the tools, even though tools are important to learn and use. It should focus on innovation! As educators, our center of attention must be about how we can

use those tools to improve the way we teach, learn, and collaborate! How can we help our students...

• find their talents and be passionate, empowered learners? • become great digital citizens?• evaluate information for accuracy and truth, and become curators of knowledge? • become innovators, designers, and computational thinkers? • become creators of new knowledge and content? • become global collaborators and better communicators?

And, importantly, how can we become those ourselves, so we model what we want them to be? That’s what this course is about!

The class is based around a series of experiences that will introduce ideas and share tools that can help accomplish these traits - both for teachers and students. The class is a team that will work together with the instructor to develop ideas and experiences that meet ISTE student and teacher stan-dards, and those will be shared with the class and the world. The course will provide class members the opportunity to create relevant, meaningful, and engaging experiences for their students that will be relevant and valuable to educators. It will provide opportunities for the class team to discuss and share thoughts, values, ideas, and experiences that will help all of us become better educators. The course content will be freely available to any edu-cator not needing USU credit. As an educator I want to help other educators benefit from my own experiences and knowledge. I also want to work with teams of educators to make education a great experience for our students, and for us! My course website is http://techintegrateed.weebly.com. Pardon the dust while I develop it. Your feedback is welcome! I want to put a powerful resource into teachers’ hands. Please have a look at it and please feel free to share this with other educators. This article was a section out of Experience 3 of the course.

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Powtoon is an new alternative to PowerPoint and Prezi. The image at left-above links to the website. The image at right-above links to an explanation video on YouTube. Powtoon also has a YouTube channel. Powtoon has special pricing for education.

OpenStudy is a great tool for stu-dents. It is a moderated site that students can join - a social network for study groups. Recently, they just announced, “It’s a very exciting day, as we are happy to announce that we are joining up with Brainly, the world’s largest social learning community. Together, with Brainly, we are going to create the world’s most awesome stu-dent-to-student platform to promote learning and knowledge sharing.”

The following is from their About page: “OpenStudy is a social learning network where students ask ques-tions, give help, and connect with oth-er students studying the same things. Our mission is to make the world one large study group, regardless of school, location, or background.

OpenStudy is a global study group, it is like walking into a library or coffee shop and finding just the right group of students who can help you with what you’re studying right now or someone struggling with a problem who could really use your help…half-way across the globe.

OpenStudy was founded in 2007 by Ashwin Ram, a Georgia Tech professor, Preetha Ram, an Emory University dean, and their former student and current CEO, Chris Sprague who returned to Atlanta after a stint in the Valley. Along with a team of smart students from Georgia Tech and Emory who, after feeling your pain, devoted the last two years of their lives making your study experience less lonely and more productive.

OpenStudy is funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Georgia Research Alliance. Most recently we were funded by the Gates/Hewlett Foundation and backed by a VC firm, LearnCapital. We’re located at Palo Alto, CA. Like any successful startup, we work hard, have fun, and believe in what we do. We invite you to use us, join us, and spread the word. We want to change the way the world learns, and we’d love to have you be part of it.”