DIP: Collaborative Research: Interactive Science Through Technology Enhanced Play (iSTEP)

DIP：协作研究：通过技术增强游戏进行互动科学 (iSTEP)

• 批准号: 1628918
• 负责人: Joshua Danish
• 金额: $ 34.81万
• 依托单位: Indiana University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-09-01 至 2021-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1628918&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: DIP; Collaborative; Research; Interactive; Science

The iSTEP project addresses a basic research question by exploring the role of the body and physical activity in learning through the design of a new genre of developmentally appropriate learning technologies for young children. There is increasing recognition that the body plays a role in cognition: human beings, especially young children, understand complex concepts in part by relating them to how we move our own bodies. In extending these ideas, the iSTEP project also aims to develop teaching techniques and technological tools that can be used in real classrooms in the near future. Instead of supporting the learning of individual students as many current technological advances attempt to do, the iSTEP project creates opportunities for entire classrooms of students to engage together to model scientific phenomena using their bodies. For instance, a classroom of students can use their own bodies to model how a state of matter such as liquid is made up of many moving particles and technologically enhance this activity to improve learning. The iSTEP project builds upon the already successful STEP mixed reality platform (IIS-1323767) by adding new forms of interaction - the use of gestures and physical props to control the STEP computer simulation. Adding these new forms of interaction allows us to examine their role in supporting learning.The existing open source STEP platform uses commercially available vision-based sensors to track the motion of up to 12 children in an 8m x 8m space. The children simply walk into the space, are assigned an avatar (i.e., they become a water particle), and that avatar follows them as they move around the room. The children's avatars are then immersed in a virtual simulation that is programed to mimic the scientific concept they are learning. In this case, the state of matter of water (e.g., solid, liquid, or gas) is determined by how fast the children move and the relative distance between them. This allows the students to discover the laws that govern state changes through their collaborative activity. Students can also use the PLAE interface (IIS-1522945) to annotate the simulation and create representations of their peers' activity, helping them all to reflect on the underlying principles inherent in the system. In iSTEP, students will now also be able to control the simulation by gesturing, posing with their whole body, and by manipulating physical objects in addition to the previous model of interacting with their entire body. In addition, by using smart watches, the project will explore alternative forms of feedback to the students as they can feel vibrations, hear sounds, and even see simple images that are targeted to help them explore the simulation. In the first round of experiments this project will contrast the gesture (and pose) interface with a new interface that uses physical props to see how each contributes to student learning. In the final year, these will be integrated to develop deeper insights into how they can best be used to support the design of learning environments that build on mixed reality systems.

iSTEP 项目通过为幼儿设计一种新型的适合幼儿发展的学习技术，探索身体和身体活动在学习中的作用，解决了一个基本研究问题。人们越来越认识到身体在认知中发挥着重要作用：人类，尤其是幼儿，部分地通过将复杂的概念与我们如何移动自己的身体联系起来来理解它们。在扩展这些想法的同时，iSTEP项目还旨在开发可在不久的将来在真实课堂中使用的教学技术和技术工具。 iSTEP 项目并没有像当前许多技术进步试图支持单个学生的学习，而是为整个教室的学生创造机会，让他们一起利用自己的身体来模拟科学现象。 例如，教室里的学生可以用自己的身体来模拟液体等物质状态是如何由许多运动粒子组成的，并通过技术增强这种活动以改善学习。 iSTEP 项目建立在已经成功的 STEP 混合现实平台 (IIS-1323767) 的基础上，添加了新的交互形式 - 使用手势和物理道具来控制 STEP 计算机模拟。添加这些新的交互形式使我们能够检验它们在支持学习中的作用。现有的开源 STEP 平台使用市售的基于视觉的传感器来跟踪 8m x 8m 空间中最多 12 名儿童的运动。孩子们只需走进这个空间，就会被分配一个化身（即，他们变成一个水粒子），当他们在房间里移动时，化身会跟随他们。然后，孩子们的化身沉浸在虚拟模拟中，该虚拟模拟被编程为模仿他们正在学习的科学概念。在这种情况下，水的物质状态（例如，固体、液体或气体）由孩子们移动的速度和他们之间的相对距离决定。这使得学生能够通过他们的协作活动发现管理状态变化的规律。学生还可以使用 PLAE 界面 (IIS-1522945) 来注释模拟并创建同伴活动的表示，帮助他们反思系统固有的基本原理。 在 iSTEP 中，除了之前与整个身体交互的模型之外，学生现在还可以通过手势、全身摆姿势以及操纵物理对象来控制模拟。此外，通过使用智能手表，该项目将探索向学生提供反馈的替代形式，因为他们可以感受到振动、听到声音，甚至看到旨在帮助他们探索模拟的简单图像。在第一轮实验中，该项目将手势（和姿势）界面与使用物理道具的新界面进行对比，以了解每个界面如何对学生的学习做出贡献。在最后一年，这些将被整合起来，以更深入地了解如何最好地利用它们来支持基于混合现实系统的学习环境的设计。