SBIR Phase II: Using Real-Time, Synchronous Collaborative Technologies to Support Elementary and Middle School Students in Developing Reading, Writing, and Collaboration Skills

SBIR第二阶段：利用实时、同步协作技术支持中小学生培养阅读、写作和协作技能

• 批准号: 1534784
• 负责人: Liz Nealon
• 金额: $ 71.33万
• 依托单位: StarWalk Kids Media
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-09-01 至 2016-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1534784&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; II; Using; Real

This SBIR Phase II project will fund the development of collaborative writing software designed specifically for children ages 14 and under. Producing well-crafted explanatory and argumentative writing using evidence, required in the study of Science and other STEM disciplines, is a challenging task for many students, and teachers often lack the resources, tools, experience and/or opportunities to integrate this kind of writing into everyday instruction. This project will provide a platform where elementary and middle school students can read, conduct research, take notes, make decisions, debate how to structure pieces of writing, and write collaboratively, with multiple students contributing to a single document in real time. Developers will help teachers to infuse best writing practices into their instruction by embedding multiple curriculum units into the software and providing professional development support. This integrated, collaborative learning environment enables students to learn critical skills required by the Common Core State Standards, to prepare for new standardized tests being given online, and importantly, to acquire the 21st century literacy proficiency necessary to succeed in higher education and careers. In preliminary testing with a prototype product, this software has been shown to improve writing skills, especially for struggling learners. There is no other software like this currently available to deliver a single-platform, comprehensive, literacy learning environment for elementary and middle school children.This project is a cloud-based, real-time collaborative platform for reading, research, writing, and publishing student work. It integrates multiple programs to work together seamlessly and with stability, even in classrooms with weak or intermittent Internet access. Engineers created proprietary plug-ins to enable a text-only collaborative program to work with HTML rich text and images, allowing users to select and copy text and images from eBooks and websites and paste them into a collaborative note-taking space or document with synchronous participation of all members of the group. In addition, every user is identified by a color so the teacher can see what each contributed to the project. Students can hear narrated eBooks read aloud (using pre-existing, proprietary software), using the information they are gathering to write collaboratively, in real time. By compacting the size of programming strings, project engineers are enabling multiple groups to use the program at the same time without exhausting server capacity. Phase II research will integrate robust curriculum and teacher support features and maximize the product's impact for students in low-proficiency schools. The project team will test features during a six-week in-school intervention, adapting on the fly to ensure effectiveness and ease of use. The innovative power of the project lies in the elegant sum of its parts.

这个SBIR第二阶段项目将资助专门为14岁及以下儿童设计的协作写作软件的开发。使用科学和其他STEM学科研究所需的证据制作精心制作的解释性和论证性写作，对许多学生来说是一项具有挑战性的任务，教师往往缺乏资源，工具，经验和/或机会将这种写作融入日常教学。这个项目将提供一个平台，让小学生和中学生可以阅读，进行研究，做笔记，做决定，讨论如何组织写作，并合作写作，多个学生在真实的时间贡献一个文件。开发人员将通过将多个课程单元嵌入到软件中并提供专业开发支持，帮助教师将最佳写作实践注入到他们的教学中。这种综合的，协作的学习环境使学生能够学习共同核心国家标准所需的关键技能，为在线提供的新标准化考试做好准备，重要的是，获得在高等教育和职业生涯中取得成功所需的21世纪世纪识字能力。在原型产品的初步测试中，该软件已被证明可以提高写作技能，特别是对于学习困难的学习者。目前还没有其他类似的软件可以为小学和中学的孩子提供一个单一平台，全面的识字学习环境。这个项目是一个基于云的实时协作平台，用于阅读，研究，写作和出版学生工作。它集成了多个程序，即使在互联网接入较弱或间歇性的教室里，也能无缝地稳定地协同工作。工程师们创建了专有的插件，使纯文本协作程序能够与HTML富文本和图像一起工作，允许用户从电子书和网站中选择和复制文本和图像，并将其粘贴到协作笔记空间或文档中，同时该组的所有成员都可以同步参与。此外，每个用户都用颜色标识，这样老师就可以看到每个用户对项目的贡献。学生们可以听到朗读的电子书（使用预先存在的专有软件），使用他们收集的信息来协作编写，在真实的时间。通过压缩编程字符串的大小，项目工程师可以让多个组同时使用程序，而不会耗尽服务器容量。第二阶段研究将整合强大的课程和教师支持功能，并最大限度地发挥产品对低熟练度学校学生的影响。项目团队将在为期六周的校内干预期间测试功能，并随时进行调整，以确保有效性和易用性。该项目的创新力量在于其各部分的优雅总和。