BioScope: Linked Computer Based Manipulatives for Biology

在过去的几年里，在美国国家科学基金会先进技术应用项目的支持下，我们开发并评估了一系列计算机应用程序，这些应用程序为教育软件提供了一种新的范例，即基于计算机的操作（CBM）。CBM是一个开放式的环境，由相互关联的表示和启示组成，具体化了一个潜在的模型，使学生能够通过直接操作和实验来研究科学和数学概念。我们最成功的CBMs之一是GenScope，它帮助学生在多个层面上对遗传学进行推理。我们建议通过创建另外三个处理组织、细胞和分子的CBMs来扩大这项技术的范围。这些新的应用程序将彼此互动，并与GenScope互动，形成一个无缝的探索环境，在这个环境中，学生可以研究传统生物学课程中单独教授的跨子学科的现象。要实现这种互操作性，需要对组件软件技术进行先进的研究。我们将设计和发布组件间通信的协议和标准，使未来的开发人员能够创建他们自己的cbm，并将它们链接到我们的cbm。在城市和郊区的学校工作，我们将进行形成性研究，以确定这种新技术的最佳使用和教育效果。

9725524 Horwitz Over the past several years, with support form the Applications of Advanced Technology Program of NSF, we have developed and evaluated a series of computer applications that offer a new paradigm for educational software, the computer-based manipulative (CBM). The CBM is an open-ended environment consisting of linked representations and affordances that reify an underlying model and enable students to investigate scientific and mathematical concepts via direct manipulation and experimentation. One of our most successful CBMs has been GenScope, which helps students reason about genetics at multiple levels. We propose to broaden the scope of this technology by creating three additional CBMs dealing with tissues, cells, and molecules. These new applications will interact with each other and with GenScope, to form a seamless exploratory environment within which students can investigate phenomena spanning subdisciplines that are taught separately in the traditional biology curriculum. To achieve such interoperability will involve advanced research in component software technology. We will design and publish protocols and standards for inter-component communication that will make it possible for future developers to create CBMs of their own and link them to ours. Working in urban and suburban schools, we will conduct formative research to determine the optimum use and educational effectiveness of this new technology.