edulearn14 barcelona 6th international conference on education and new learning technologies

Using Advanced Web3D based Information Visualization Technology to Support an Exploratory Hands-on

Workshop for K-12 Educators

Jorge Ferreira Franco

Edna Oliveira Telles

EDULEARN14 Barcelona

6th International Conference on Education and New Learning TechnologiesBarcelona - 7th - 9th of July 2014

Purpose of this work

This work describes an exploratory hands-on web3D based workshop in which k-12 educators reflected why and how to apply the interrelation involving advanced information and communication technology, computer programming and digital arts concepts as well as individual’s interdisciplinary education possibilities.

What are the contributions of this work?

Research and practical examples of using web3D digital technologies to stimulate non-expert individuals experiencing problem solving activities with support of computer science principles based on computer programming and real time 3D information visualization techniques and tools.

To promote educators’ knowledge, practice and reflection about how to apply accessible web3D based tools for inspiriting individuals’ cognitive enhancements related to reading, writing, attention, spatial cognition and memory.

Diagnosis• There has been an educational gap related to

promoting k-12 educators’ digital knowledge enhancements referent to understanding and direct manipulating advanced web3D based information visualization technology through computer programming.

• There has been a need to individuals acquire technical and practical knowledge and use web3D information visualization technology on classroom daily teaching and learning activities.

Some Important Information

• Computer programming has gained researchers’ attention in order to expand the number of individuals (students, teachers, parents) able to program computers and understand Computer Science (CS) principles at k-12 levels

Some Important Information• Based on public policy programs educators have

improved their digital skills in order to teach this unfamiliar topic and thousands of students have passed courses in programming and computer sciences topics (as in a New Zealand project).

• Examples of computer topics are: algorithms, human computer interaction (HCI), formal languages, complexity and tractability, intelligent systems, software engineering, and graphics and visual computing.

Some Important Information• In terms of educational work based on 3D digital

environments programming, the software Alice [8] has been used to stimulate individuals learning computer programming and producing hypermedia storytelling at primary teaching with support of 3D visual programming and visualization, including programming applying Java language.

Some Important Information The project AVATAR has used virtual worlds (VWs)

which are based on computer supported collaborative work (CSCW) [10]. It also has used an adequate cyberinfrastructure [11] such as the one applied in Second Life (SL) through a course for supporting teachers’ training for teaching in 3D VWs [12]. However, even being a collaborative and sponsored project, its evaluation processes, in terms costs for keeping the necessary SL servers, have considered the cost too high for expanding the project AVATAR training course

Some Important Information• In terms of educational work based on 3D digital

environments programming, the software Alice [8] has been used to stimulate individuals learning computer programming and producing hypermedia storytelling at primary teaching with support of 3D visual programming and visualization, including programming applying Java language.

Some Important Information We have had problems for installing software like

Alice at school computers’ lab. Beyond that, there has been a lack of skilled educators to use, for instance, Scratch, Alice and/or other computers programming text based languages to support students learning CS and curriculum scientific concepts at k-12 levels.

A browser based digital system that we used to support the educational hands-on workshop object of this paper is the X3DOM framework, which we detail further in the strategy and materials section.

Theoretical support

Comes from interrelating:

Janet Wing’s ideas related to computational thinking skills;

"Computational Thinking is the thought processes involved in formulating problems and their solutions so that the solutions are represented in a form that can be effectively carried out by an information-processing agent." (Shein, E. (2014))

Theoretical support

Freire’s thoughts referent to the necessity of people increase their knowledge and technical skills in a giving field;

Freire argues that “the knowledge is built inside the mankind interactions with the world, in the relations that can bring about transformation, and it is improved within a critical transformation of those relations. So, within an interactive process of reflecting with individuals any question of technical order, it is necessary that for those individuals a given theme of technical order has some meaning” (Freire, 2011).

Theoretical support

Ones’ technical awareness of a particular theme, for instance, digital technical skills, can increase the potential of individuals’ understand the interactive relations between the technical order and other dimensions from reality;

For example, the concept of Computational Thinking supports that developing computer programming abilities can be an effective way of individuals learning to think abstractly

Theoretical support

Individuals learn to thinking abstract can be done through developing computer programming abilities based on the application of concepts referent to minimal art, microworlds and advanced 3D information visualization techniques and tools.

The term minimalism is used to describe a trend in design and architecture wherein the subject is reduced to its necessary elements.

Concepts of minimalism and microworld to the achievement of the educators workshop

Minimalism in visual art, generally referred to as "minimal art", literalist art and ABC Art emerged in New York in the early 1960s as new and older artists moved toward geometric abstraction exploring via painting and sculpture.

Fig- 1 An example of minimal art. From Tony Smith, Free Ride, 1962.Source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimalism.


“a microworld is a genre of computational document aimed at embedding important ideas in a form that students can readily explore”.

A microworld is an example of exploratory learning environment which can be presented by their structural and functional affordances. Structural ones are a collection of computational objects that model mathematical and physical properties of the domain, links to multiple representation of the underlying model, opportunities to combine the computational objects in complex way.


Microworlds’ functionalities are related to interactions between the learner, the software and the setting in which it is used. Including that a microworld needs to match cognitive and affective condition of the user.

Example of a 3D microworld

Fig-2 In theory and practice the building of this kind of text based 3D microworld addresses individuals’ reading, writing, understanding, spatial and digital skills.

Strategy and materials This work hands-on development used as materials

a standard computers lab from Sao Paulo municipal schools network.

Computers lab standard composition has 21 personal computers, Core i3, 4GB memory, Windows XP operating system, and Internet accessibility.

The written of a programming code was done through using a simple notepad software program that is similar to ones in other operating systems. And for visualizing the code symbolic representation it was used an internet browser such as Firefox™, as shown in the previous slide.

Strategy and materials

The programming code in figure-2 was written using a digital framework which is called X3DOM.

X3DOM is an experimental open-source framework and runtime to support the ongoing discussion in the Web3D and W3C communities how an integration of HTML5 and declarative 3D content could look like. It tries to fulfill the current HTML5 specification for declarative 3D content and allows including X3D elements as part of any HTML5 DOM tree [20].

A Web3d-based hands-on workshop

Context: II Seminar Educadores do Jaragua, which occurred in September, 2012.

This workshop took a period of 1:15 minutes

The workshop started with a brief informal survey related to how many educators were aware of existing 3D digital technologies and their educational possibilities. Most of them said that was not aware of such technologies, however, some educators mentioned 3D games.


There was an explanation on how advanced contemporary information and communication technologies have been used in the entertainment industry and educational research fields.


Within the idea of interdisciplinary teaching and learning, some CS techniques such as formal languages and computer programming were interrelated with the concepts of minimalism/minimal art and microworlds.

It includes a particular piece of programming

code symbolic representation through a digital sculpture based on applying concepts related to arts, English, Portuguese, math and geometry, which are school curriculum subjects at k-12 levels as showed in the next slide figure-3.

A Web3D-based hands-on workshop

Fig 3 - Part of a computer programming code and its simbolic representation interrelating minimal art, microworlds and k-12 curriculum scientific concepts


Educators’ reflections and human computer interactions passed by a comparison involving formal languages such as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and the X3DOM framework.

They reflected and worked with the idea of enhancing individuals’ spatial cognition based on direct manipulation of text based files, involving geometric forms, negative and positive numbers, digital objects transformations and translation such as the following example of X3DOM code:


A sample of X3DOM programming code

<Transform DEF="boxTrafo" translation='-1.5 0 0'> in [23], which also involves concepts related to the Cartesian plan and the coordinates (X, Y and Z) symbolic represented in the field translation (X = -1; Y = 0; Z=0).


Due to the restrictive amount of time, k-12 educators created a sample of geometric digital object in order to experience in practice the theoretical concepts discussed during workshop.

K-12 Educators’ web3D based digital object was a combination of a sphere and a box geometries figure 4.


Fig 4 – K-12 educators after computer programming and building a microworld by combining a sphere and box geometries

A Web3d-based hands-on workshop - research

• At the end of this workshop there was an informal survey.

• And from the twenty k-12 educators that participated in the workshop interactive thinking and practical processes, seven individuals answered it in a volunteer way.


A qualitative analysis of the survey indicates that the educators were satisfied with the possibilities of creating educational content based on the use of X3DOM framework. Most of them suggested that this kind of technology can support learning of scientific concepts in any subject of the k-12 curriculum.

However, in general, educators considered that the workshop should be longer in order to enable individuals assimilate deeper the proceedings involving the technology used and the production of 3D artwork.


It seems that the problem of a lack of time and resources for training educators in our network is similar to the situation addressed in [7] when such work refers to the CS curriculum and the problem of how to train in scale and quality new and older educators to computational resources in New Zealand.

Final Considerations

This work has presented a reflection and practice of using advanced web3D digital technologies to stimulate non expert individuals / k-12 educators experiencing problem solving activities with support of computer programming and real time advanced information visualization techniques and tools.


It includes how to promote educators’ knowledge about qualitative understanding and applying accessible web3D based tools for learning and inspiriting individuals’ cognitive enhancements related to reading, writing, attention, spatial cognition and memory within learning by doing through computer programming and producing a digital artefact with support of computational thinking, minimal art and microworld concepts.


Paraphrasing (Ribier, 2005), this hands-on workshop has addressed the concept of microworlds in relation to foster understanding and exploring concepts and principles referent to complex systems, qualitative comprehending based on using concrete models as well as decreasing the distinction between learning science and doing science since the beginning of k-12 levels.

Acknowledgment

Thanks to the Diretoria Regional de Educação de Pirituba” (DREP) for the opportunity of sharing knowledge with other k-12 educators from Sao Paulo Municipal Schools network.

Thanks to the educators that participated on this web3D hands-on workshop.

Any question?

E:mail

Jorge Ferreira Franco [email protected] /

[email protected]

Edna Oliveira Telles [email protected]

References1- Franco, J. F.; Cruz, S. R. R.; Lopes, R. D. (2006). Computer

graphics, interactive technologies and collaborative learning synergy supporting individuals' skills development. Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2006, Educators Program, ACM ORG.

2- Angeluci, A.C.B; Calixto, G.M. ; Zuffo, M.K. ; de Deus Lopes, R. ; Pemberton, L. (2013). Human Computer Interaction requirements for an educational toolset using Digital TV infrastructure: Case study, IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), pp. 813-819.

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4- Cabral, M. et al. (2014). Bi-manual gesture interaction for 3D cloud point selection and annotation using cots, IEEE Symposium on 3D User Interfaces 2014, 29 - 30 March, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, 187-188.

References5- Franco, J. F.; Lopes, R. D. (2012). Developing an interactive

knowledge-based learning framework with support of computer graphics and web-based technologies for enhancing individuals’ cognition, scientific, learning performance and digital literacy competences, IN: Mukai, N. (Ed), Computer Graphics, Intech, Croatia, 2012. http://www.intechopen.com/books/computer-graphics

6- Shein, E. (2014). Should everybody learn to code?, Communications of ACM, February, Vol. 57, nº 2, pp 16-18.

7- Bell, T. (2014). Education: Establishing a nationwide CS curriculum in New Zealand high schools. Communications of ACM, February, Vol. 57, nº 2, pp 28-30.

8- Alice (2014). An educational software that teaches students computer programming in a 3D environment. http://www.alice.org/index.php

References9- Alice Brasil (2014).

http://www.mackenzie.com.br/alice_conselho.html?&L=2

10- Honey, M. A.; Margaret, H. (Org.) (2011). Learning science through computer games and simulations, National Academies Press, USA.

11- Pivec, M.; Pauschenwein, J. (2011). “AVATAR Course: teacher training for teaching in 3D virtual worlds”, IEEE 14th ICL 2011, 978-1-4577-1746-8/11.

12- AVATAR “Added Value of teAching in a virTuAl woRld”, Project 502882-LLP-1-2009-1-IT-, Lifelong learning programe, 2010. http://89.202.197.83/avatar/images/files/Deliverable%2010_FINAL_%20Most%20Effective%20V-Platform%20for%20Teachers.pdf

References13- Carnegie Mellon University (2014). Computational thinking,

Center for Computational Thinking at Carnegie Mellon University, http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~CompThink/

14- Freire, P. (2011). Extensão ou comunicação? Brasil: Paz e Terra, pp. 42-43.

15- Minimalism (visual arts) (2014). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimalism_%28visual_arts%29

16- Papert, S. (1993). Mindstorms: children, computers, and powerful ideas, Basic Books, USA, 1993.

17- Franco, J. F. (2014). Reflections Related to Applying Web3D-based Computer Graphics Programming and Information Visualization Technologies for Stimulating Individuals’ Digital Literacy, Cognitive Skills and Sciences Knowledge Enhancements at K-12 Levels, ICT 2014/Social Media, 15 – 17, April, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China. http://www.socialmediaforall.org/ / http://www.socialmediaforall.org/program.html

References18- Franco, J. F.; Lopes, R. D. (2013). Using X3DOM for promoting

students' digital and visual literacy at K-12 education: a use case. Proceedings Web3D 2013, ACM, June 20 – 22, San Sebastian, Spain.

19- São Paulo (SP) (2008). Secretaria Municipal de Educação. Diretoria de Orientação Técnica. Caderno de Orientações Didáticas – Ler e Escrever: Tecnologias na Educação / Secretaria Municipal de Educação – São Paulo: SME / DOT. 130p. http://portalsme.prefeitura.sp.gov.br/Documentos/BibliPed/InfoEduc/caderno_impresso.pdf

20- X3DOM. (2014). X3Dom used in Primary School Project. In X3Dom. http://www.x3dom.org/?p=3050

21- Seminar Educadores do Jaragua (2012). Seminário Educadores do Jaragua, http://educadoresdojaragua.blogspot.com.br/

References21- Ribier, L. P. (2005). Multimedia Learning in Games, Simulations

and Microworlds. In: Mayer, R. E. (Ed.) The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning, Cambridge University Press, pp. 549-567.

22- X3DOM examples (2014). Primitives: Box, Cone, Cylinder and Sphere Primitives, http://examples.x3dom.org/example/x3dom_geoPrimitives.xhtml

edulearn14 barcelona 6th international conference on education and new learning technologies

Documents

d visual programming

examples of computer

computer sciences topics

web3d digital technologies

advanced information

computer science cs

accessible web3d

educators knowledge