ScribbleProv: Supporting disciplined improvisation during face-to-face discussion
Teachers in many countries now have access to wirelessly connected devices, but need ways to use that infrastructure to enable agile and collaborative learning in their classrooms. The NSF-funded ScribbleProv project at SRI is investigating roles that technology can play in a particular form of agile performance called "disciplined improvisation." In particular, this project is studying middle school mathematics classrooms to develop a theoretical framework for how teachers make real-time accommodations in reaction to student contributions, and has developed Group Scribbles version 2.0 to better support collaborative activities and improvisational moves in the classroom.
Group Scribbles is a general-use collaborative application that offers implementers, instructors and students a powerful metaphor for thinking about and realizing collaborative learning activities. This metaphor is based on common physical artifacts from the classroom or office: adhesive notes, bulletin boards, whiteboards, stickers, pens, and markers. Group Scribbles enables students and a teacher to scribble contributions on sheets similar to post-it notes and to jointly manage the movement of these electronic notes within and between public and private spaces. Using Group Scribbles, a classroom can enact a surprisingly wide range of cooperative activities with content ranging from simple sketches and annotations to mathematical symbols and more elaborate concept maps.
The project team has co-designed, with three middle-school math teachers, a set of Group Scribbles math activities that are available on our Group Scribbles Community Wiki, and we are currently conducting observations as the teachers use these activities in their classrooms. The project is also collaborating closely with the NSF-funded Contingent Pedagogies project at SRI to enhance existing, NSF-funded middle school earth science curricula with Group Scribbles activities.
For more information, see the Group Scribbles Web Site.
9/2007 - 2/2010 (current)
Funders & Clients
Publications
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Brecht, J., DiGiano, C., Patton, C., Tatar, D., Chaudhury, R., Roschelle, J., & Davis, K. (2007). Coordinating networked learning activities with a general-purpose Interface. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning.
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Research Areas
Learning Environments
Technology Development
Keywords
collaborative technologies
CSCL
Group Scribbles
improvisation
innovation & educational change