Distance Education and Cyberinfrastructure: Opportunities for Impact

1. Distance Education and Cyberinfrastructure:Opportunities for Impact Lee L. Zia National Science Foundation May 2, 2006 All ADEC Meeting Washington, DC

2. NSF and Cyberinfrastructure (CI) • Revolutionizing Science and Engineering Through Cyberinfrastructure: Report of the National Science Foundation Blue-Ribbon Advisory Panel on Cyberinfrastructure http://www.nsf.gov/cise/sci/reports/atkins.pdf • Office of Cyberinfrastructure (OCI): Fall 2005 Dan Atkins first head of OCI – June 2006

3. CI Strategic Plan:Request for Community Input • http://www.nsf.gov/od/oci/ci_v5.pdf • Comments via email to: ciinput@nsf.gov • High Performance Computing • Data • Collaboratories & Virtual Observatories • Learning and Workforce Development

4. Cyberinfrastructure for Education and Learning for the Future: Vision and Research Agenda • http://www.cra.org/reports/cyberinfrastructure.pdf • Modeling, Simulation and Gaming Technologies Applied to Education • Cognitive Implications of Virtual or Web-enabled Environments • How Emerging Technology and Cyberinfrastructure Might Revolutionize the Role of Assessment in Learning • The Interplay Between Communities of Learning or Practice and Cyberinfrastructure

5. Integrative Nature of Cyberlearning Learning researchers Learner Domain investigators Tool builders

6. Two examples • Digital libraries • Virtual laboratories

7. di gi tal li bra ry “A managed environment of multimedia materials in digital form, designed for the benefit of its user population, structured to facilitate access to its contents, and equipped with aids to navigate the global network ... with users and holdings totally distributed, but managed as a coherent whole.” (Mel Collier, ISDL ‘97)

8. NSDL Vision:A Learning Environments and Resources Network for STEM Education (LEARNS) • Designed to meet the needs of learners, in both individual and collaborative settings • Constructed to enable dynamic use of a broad array of materials for learning, primarily in digital format • Managed actively to promote reliable anytime - anywhere access to quality collections and services, available both within and without the network www.nsdl.org

9. NSDL’s Integrative Nature Users NSDL Domain investigators (content providers) Builders (tool developers)

10. NSDL Connects: • Users: students, educators, life-long learners • Content:structured learning materials; large real-time or archived datasets; audio, images, animations;primary sources; digital learning objects (e.g. applets);interactive (virtual, remote) laboratories; ... • Tools: search; refer; validate; integrate; create; customize; publish; share; notify; collaborate; ...

11. Users Tools Content NSDL Supports: Learning communities (profiles) Application services (protocols) Customizable collections (metadata)

12. Virtual Laboratories: Issues and Opportunities • A useful taxonomy (“web-enabled laboratories”) • image collections • animations • interactive simulations • remote manipulation of instrumentation

14. Animations: Simple can be effective Sorting Algorithms http://java.sun.com/applets/jdk/1.1/demo/SortDemo/index.html

15. Molecular Workbench:http://workbench.concord.org/

16. Remote operation of a scanning electron microscope

17. Advantages • Enhanced access (overcoming distance, time, numbers) • Expensive experiments (e.g. chip testing) • Dangerous experiments

18. Key Issues • Access and equity • Conditions for effective use • Developmental appropriateness • Relationship to traditional laboratory experiences - hybrid models

19. New Developments • 3-D digital printing • Grid computing/communication • Telecollaboration and telepresence - applications of virtual reality

20. A Services project in the National Science Digital Library

21. VR cave - Diffusion Tensor MRI Brain Visualization

22. Da Vinci: slider crank and endless screw

23. Reuleaux model of slider crank

24. Reuleaux model of endless screw

25. Interactive (virtual) slider crank

26. Implications • What is the (new) role of the teacher within the learner centered environment? • How is the professional role of the teacher changing? Societal impacts? • Informal learning settings are also being changed • Where is the locus (loci) of learning? What is learning? • Boundaries between educational levels are being blurred: students-teachers-researchers

27. Implications (cont.) • How does the educational system respond to changing behavioral patterns and technical skills of students who are increasingly more comfortable with new tools than teachers? • What is the impact on the actual development of new materials, resources: product and process? • Continuing professional development of teachers and faculty • Education questions are stimulating research!

28. Research Questions • Exploring hybrid models: is there a proper “mix” of the analog and digital? If so, what are its features? • How is this “mix” developmentally dependent? Interesting cognitive issues dealing with the role of the various senses in the process of sense-making. • Error: how is it “faithfully” reproduced? What about artificial error which results from an incorrect choice of an approximation algorithm?

29. Research Questions (cont.) • Are there common design principles that reflect understanding of human perception of (mainly) 2-D representations of 3-D worlds? Are these discipline dependent? How so? • Is there an optimal use of haptic feedback? • Learner behavior in the laboratory can be observed with much greater detail. What does this enable? • Economic implications: Can we help institutions grapple with the rising cost of analog laboratories? How are these balanced with the costs of the networking infrastructure that must be in place?

30. Opportunities • Inter- and intra-directorate collaborations on joint programs • Important focus of research on the sciences of learning • Digital library infrastructure (NSDL) to connect research and development efforts