SBIR Phase II: Creating New Learning Opportunities: Platform-Independent, Wireless, Task-Oriented Communities

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目旨在设计和开发一个具有挑战性和至关重要的通信软件层，使K-12教育软件开发人员能够以低成本快速地将对协作学习活动的明确支持整合到他们现有的应用程序中。Elmer软件开发工具包（SDK）将使学生能够使用广泛的手持（甚至台式机/笔记本电脑）计算机平台（Windows CE & XP, Linux, Mac OS X）进行协作，因为他们已经开始体验到，教室将并排使用非同一性计算机。这个提议的努力的智力价值源于需要构建新的算法来自动检测其他设备，重新格式化通信的消息，以便在一系列平台上实现跨平台（和跨操作系统）通信。这种努力的结果应该是一个软件开发工具包，它产生了协作学习策略的结合。K-12教育是美国民主的基石。正如《不让一个孩子掉队法》（No Child Left Behind， NCLB）所承认的那样，为了让美国继续为其人民提供美国承诺的生活水平，美国在重塑我们教育孩子的方式方面还有一些严肃的工作要做。科技是当今这代人在校外的首选工具；我们也需要让科技成为学校内部不可或缺的工具。倡导技术是容易的部分——使技术易于使用、有用和令人愉快仍然是一个挑战。我们的SBIR项目直接触及了帮助K-12实现技术对教学产生积极影响的愿景的核心。特别值得一提的是，拟议中的研究将使教育软件开发人员能够快速、低成本地创建教师需要的、学生喜欢的、富有成效的协作应用程序。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project aimes to design and develop a challenging and critically important layer of communications' software that enables K-12 educational software developers to incorporate explicit support for collaborative learning activities into their existing applications quickly and at low-cost. The Elmer Software Development Kit (SDK) will enable students to collaborate using a broad range of handheld (or even desktop/laptop) computer platforms (Windows CE & XP, Linux, Mac OS X) since classrooms, as they are already beginning to experience, will be using non-homogenous computers side-by-side. The Intellectual Merit of this proposed effort stems from the need to construct new algorithms to automatically detect other devices, to reformat communications' messages to enable cross-platform (and cross-operating system) communication on a range of platforms. The outcome of this effort should be a software development kit that engenders the incorporation of collaborative learning strategies. K-12 education is the cornerstone of America's democracy. As No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act acknowledges, America has some serious work to do in reinventing how we educate our children in order for America to continue to provide its people with the standard of living that is the American Promise. Technology is today's generation's tool of choice outside of school; we need to make technology an integral tool inside of school, too. Advocating for technology is the easy part - making the technology accessible, useful, and enjoyable remains the challenge. Our SBIR project goes directly to the core of helping K-12 realize the vision of technology positively impacting teaching and learning. In particular, the proposed research will enable educational software developers to create, quickly and at low cost, collaboration-enabled applications that teachers demand and that students find enjoyable and productive.