With the aid of computer simulations, invisible phenomena like static electricity or molecular reactions turn into easy-to-see processes.
In virtual labs that give high school students remote control of real-world lab equipment, the constraints and artificial simplicity that a 50-minute class period imposes on an experimental design fade away.
And in role-playing challenges, the technology fosters collaboration and critical thinking and relays data, but the crises themselves remain in the imaginations of the students.
Perhaps nowhere are there more diverse possibilities with great potential to transform teaching with multimedia tools than in science education. But experts say that, for teachers, it can still be a long road from a primitive depiction of electron transfer in static electricity to a lab where high school students measure the radiation in a strontium-90 isotope sample halfway across the country.
鈥淒epending on which type of technology you鈥檙e talking about, there鈥檚 different levels of uptake,鈥� said Albert Byers, the assistant executive director of e-learning and government partnerships for the National Science Teachers Association, in Arlington, Va. 鈥淭he nexus, the teacher, is where we need to focus. The software, the technology, will follow suit.鈥�
Teachers appear willing to embrace simple models that illustrate a scientific concept on a computer screen and allow the user to adjust variables to get different results. One example is the PhET Independent Simulations project, an initiative of the University of Colorado at Boulder that began in 2004 and is considered among the leaders in educational science simulation.
During 2010, students ran about 15 million single simulations at the PhET site, which gets funding from the National Science Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, among others. (The Hewlett Foundation also provides grant support for coverage of 鈥渄eeper learning鈥� and the economic stimulus by Education Week.) In 2011, it鈥檚 expected that the site will host 22 million simulations, according to Katherine K. Perkins, the site鈥檚 director, a far cry from the mere thousands of simulations that ran in the program鈥檚 first year.
The PhET site, which originally stood for Physics Education Technology, hosts more than 100 models that address concepts across physics, chemistry, biology, and calculus, and are available for free to teachers and students. It鈥檚 also become the object of commercial inquiries from various online content providers that wish to incorporate some of its simulations into various science curricula, a step Ms. Perkins says is necessary.
鈥淚f you open a simulation, you will see it is a really flexible tool,鈥� she said. 鈥淏ut what they don鈥檛 do is they don鈥檛 come with a curriculum around them. They don鈥檛 come with any particular set of steps you have to do. They鈥檙e really just open play areas, so teachers are free to write activities around them and add specific learning goals they want to address.鈥�
One recently developed simulation allows a user to observe how light refracts through glass, water, and other substances, with the user able to alter the color of light and the surface the light passes through. Other more recently developed simulations allow users to run mock nuclear-fission reactions, toy with the fragile gravitational relationships between the planets and sun in our solar system, and cause genetic mutations in bunnies by fiddling with their natural habitat.
鈥楬ow Science Works鈥�
But getting beyond computer models and using real-life virtual labs on the high school level is far less widespread.
Kemi Jona, the director of the office of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education partnerships at Northwestern University, in Evanston, Ill., says one reason is that many virtual labs鈥攚hich are becoming increasingly common in the undergraduate world鈥攈ave material that is potentially suitable for high school use, but is difficult to understand for teachers as well as students because it is presented in an overly technical, jargon-laden manner.
Mr. Jona helps oversee Northwestern鈥檚 iLabCentral program in its effort to design virtual labs targeted toward high school teachers and students, as well as to connect those students to other existing virtual labs. The site links to 21 virtual labs from sources throughout the world, but only eight are deemed appropriate for high school students, and only one was created by the iLabs project team.
In the lab created by Mr. Jona鈥檚 team, students remotely operate a Geiger counter to measure how the intensity of radiation changes with distance, and ultimately answer the question of how much exposure to a cellphone is too much. A controlled pilot of the lab in the fall of 2009 saw 1,000 individual labs run, said Mr. Jona, while 3,700 labs have been run independently since then.
鈥淲e know we need to build out more labs so we have a range of different courses,鈥� he said. 鈥淥ne lab is not going to change the whole world. But teachers are really excited about it.鈥�
He said the site, which is free to use, is constructing other labs and is encouraging more-advanced high school students to try using the undergraduate-level labs. And while he understands that many teachers might feel more comfortable using PhET-style simulations, or even running simple, in-class experiments, he stresses that virtual labs offer a far better window into real-world science.
Often in virtual labs, he said, students need to calibrate machines to ensure accurate measurements, try to parse meaningful observations out of 鈥渘oisy鈥� or unclear data, and even run numerous trials over days or weeks to test findings for efficiency.
鈥淲e need to be teaching them that [science] is a slow, careful process,鈥� Mr. Jona said. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 do very sophisticated things [in a classroom] because they can鈥檛 fit in a 50-minute period. You only get one shot out of it, which is not how science works at all. In fact, it鈥檚 the opposite of how science works.鈥�
Scientific Collaboration
Bruce Howard, an independent consultant and former program developer at the Center for Education Technologies at Wheeling Jesuit University, in Wheeling, W.Va., adds that collaboration is also a key element of real-world science. And it鈥檚 an element students can learn through 鈥渆-Missions,鈥� or simulated, problem-based, learning adventures.
In e-Missions, the digital technology is used not only to model a scientific phenomenon or give data feedback, but also to help students collaborate via email, instant messaging, or videoconferencing. Wheeling Jesuit University offers 11 such missions via its Challenger Learning Center (one of about 50 such loosely affiliated centers across the country), with subjects ranging from weather catastrophes to space exploration.
One of its most comprehensive simulations is based on the 1995 eruption of a previously dormant volcano on the 7-mile-wide Caribbean island of Montserrat. In the simulation, students are given data both from the eruption and an approaching hurricane, as if the two are happening in real time, and are assigned the role of hurricane, volcano, evacuation, or communication specialist. The four must then collaborate to decide how best to protect the island鈥檚 population.
Mr. Howard argues that using students鈥� imaginations鈥攔ather than computer-generated images or models鈥攊s a more effective method of simulation because educational multimedia tools won鈥檛 be able to catch up to the realism of the media students consume in their own time.
鈥�69传媒 are more sophisticated all the time, especially when it comes to graphics, because they鈥檙e spoiled by Hollywood,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e learning all those great21st-century learning skills鈥攖he collaboration, the listening skills.鈥�
He adds that such simulations can give students science-career ideas they previously may not have considered. For example, while students know the roles of doctors and nurses, they may learn of other medical professions in a collaborative simulation in which students act as a medical team at a hospital.
鈥淵ou don鈥檛 think about the radiologist, or about the phlebotomist. Those are interesting career fields also,鈥� Mr. Howard said.
3-D Modeling Tools
At the 1,000-student Hawaii Technology Academy, a charter school based in Waipahu, just west of Honolulu, that blends face-to-face and online learning, students take the collaboration a step further.
The school鈥檚 students have collaborated with ichthyologists, who study aquatic life, and used free 3-D modeling tools like Google SketchUp to create computer images of newly discovered extinct species of fish. And high school students regularly create games and simulations for academic use by middle schoolers at the school, which is three years old and now spans grades K-12.
The school鈥檚 founder and head of school, Jeff Piontek, who was formerly Hawaii鈥檚 department of education state science specialist and before that was the New York City school system鈥檚 director of instructional technology, recognizes that not all schools can go to the same lengths to immerse so many students in multimedia creation. But he says adopting a little bit of what the Hawaii Technology Academy does at a traditional, district-run school is easier than most educators think.
鈥淲hat people don鈥檛 understand is the tools are free, and if it鈥檚 not free, it鈥檚 of minimal cost,鈥� Mr. Piontek said. 鈥淭he biggest thing you need to look at is to look for a teacher or an advocate for science and using technology and let them run. Don鈥檛 tie their hands.鈥�
The NSTA鈥檚 Mr. Byers says the use鈥攁nd possibly even student-led construction鈥攐f all types of simulations will grow in time. But he warns that both creators and participants have to be sure that simulations mesh closely with instructional standards. He also adds that simulations are by no means the only area in which multimedia tools are transforming science instruction.
Content repositories that house online presentations, lessons, and videos; video games based on a scientific premise; and even mobile-phone applications that allow students to easily record and transmit scientific data from the field all have the ability to transform the science classroom, Mr. Byers says. And he hopes the movement toward standards that stress critical-thinking skills will only help the adoption of all such tools.
鈥淭he world is awash with tons of different types of learning media,鈥� Mr. Byers said. 鈥淭here is something for everyone between the two-minute video, the single simulation, and a six-week moderated simulated course. 鈥� With new standards that are more critical-thinking-aligned, that鈥檚 going to generate more curriculum adoption and professional development in support of that.鈥�
