1.

• SmartGraphs NSBE Convention March 24, 2011

• This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DRL-918522.== ==

• Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

• Dr. Baba Kofi Weusijana Former Contractor for
• The Concord Consortium, Concord, MA 01742

http://www.concord.org/projects/smartgraphs

2.

Students Understand their Graphs

Typically students learn to make graphs in school and can understand how to make them later

3.

Graphs and Meaning

Understanding and interpreting complicated graphs made by other people becomes a problem in college and industry

4. A Solution: learning by using SmartGraphs 5.

Graphs and Meaning

A smart graph will be able to recognize the features of a graph that an expert graph user would recognize. In addition, it will be able to connect these features to the context that is represented by the graph (Tinker, 2006).

6. Research Project Goal

Develop SmartGraphs, document their effectiveness through rigorous research, and scale up so this technology becomes widely available.

7. Principal Investigators

Carolyn Staudt

8. Andrew Zucker Project Inquiries

[email_address]

9. Video&Hands-On Activities ! Smart Graphs 10.

Key Features of the SmartGraphs Project

Users interact with graphs to learn the story of some type of graph

11. Lessons use visual hints and annotations on graphs 12. Scaffolding (hints) revealed only as necessary 13. Software runs directly in a modern web browser (using Javascript) 14. Teachers can assign particular activities to their students via a portal 15. Authorable (eventually) by non-programmers 16. Project is conducting a sizeable randomized experimental field trial 17. Software permits use of probes/sensors (within the web browser) 18. Experiments under way to automate smartness for graph analysis 19.

Force and Motion Learning Goals

Identify axes (coordinates, scaling, origin, etc.)

Determine the shape of a graph (max, min, trends, etc.)

20. Interpret realtime data from probes (patterns, noise, etc.) 21. Describe direction and amount of motion (contextual stories) 22. Understand rate of change (velocity and acceleration) 23.

SmartGraph Activities

We embed SmartGraphs in instructionalactivitiesto help students meet specific learning goals

24. Like Google Docs, activities run in web browser itself

Using SproutCore and jQuery

Like mobile apps, activities hide extraneous UI to keep the student focused on the task at hand 25. Activities can ask students to enter text or manipulate the graph, and they respond to the student with textual and graphical feedback

http://smartgraphs.concord.org/demo.html

26.

Tutorial Slope Tool

27. Thank You! Look for slides and other information at: http://edutek.net/kofi SmartGraphs is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DRL-0918522. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.