Consumers to creators: Reducing the barrier of entry for educators to customize digital learning experiences
Abstract
Browser-based digital learning products are in wide use across K-20 settings. These products can offer many important educational features—they can make use of real-time or near-real-time data, they can be interactive, and they can make use of multimedia. However, much like their textbook antecedents, they are essentially closed, non-modifiable material from a teacher's standpoint. This need not be the case. At the core of the NASA-funded Infiniscope project are interactive, simulation-, and inquiry-based digital learning experiences and a digital network of engaged science educators. Our learning experiences are built using the Smart Sparrow platform, which means that much of the content of those experiences can be edited in a web browser. This makes the Infiniscope teaching network a natural place to explore the feasibility of allowing educators to modify or create digital learning experiences of their own.
Our first approach was to recruit and train educators to create their own short lessons leveraging NASA assets. Although this did lead to a number of finished products, the time commitment was larger than most educators will be able to make, thus we conceived of an easier first step into lesson editing that would help us to reach larger numbers of educators. This new entrypoint trains educators to take one of the existing Infiniscope learning experiences and customize specific introductory or concluding material, instead of having to build a wholly new lesson. For example, an educator might include an image or video of a nearby location that has a connection to the main topic of the experience, connect the experience to a current event topic that resonates in the community, or highlight how the lesson topic relates to what the students will be learning next in class. We are introducing this new approach to lesson customization to Infiniscope network members through a series of quick 30 minute webinars. We are creating easy-to-use templates that can be embedded into any existing Infiniscope lesson to further streamline this process for educators. This simplified initial training gives educators foundational lesson editing skills in Smart Sparrow. This will allow interested and motivated educators to more easily take on the challenge of making more extensive changes or even building their own lessons in the future.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFMED11B0863S
- Keywords:
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- 0805 Elementary and secondary education;
- EDUCATION;
- 0810 Post-secondary education;
- EDUCATION;
- 0815 Informal education;
- EDUCATION;
- 0850 Geoscience education research;
- EDUCATION