Participatory Simulations – NWU
The NWU Participatory Simulations project was developed in 2004 and is free to download and use from their site, and involves using Texas Instruments calculators. The side menu has links to the overview, goals, resources, research, guides, and free software (Net Logo). This software works within a HubNet system (described below).
In a PS, students play a role in the system and see how their behaviour in the system affect the whole, thus, experiencing emerging patterns from these individual behaviours and the ability to observe collective date to discover those patterns or relationships.
HubNet is a classroom-based network of handheld devices (graphing calculator) and one up-front computer where individual, peer-to-peer, small group, and whole class modes can occur. The data streams to the computer for modeling and analyzing which can be displayed to the class using a projector. There are six lessons available for networked computers or calculators, such as understanding functions, making sense of the logistics curve, understanding the spread of disease in a population, and optimizing of traffic flow through a city grid.
The original Logos involved one person programming within a box, but NetLogo is networked to allow for multiple students to input actions which cause reactions. There is a library of activities that can be used to get started in understanding the use of PSs in various subjects (Math and Science being prominent uses). In specifically using the calculator activities, there’s a Classroom Network software that is managed by the teacher, for example, to initiate a particular PS activity.
For example, the disease PS allows them to choose a character, use simple commands to navigate the grid, choose ‘infect’ to infect one character (which is identified on the screen), and then the rest of the students try to maintain their health as long as possible by navigating away from those who are infected. Collective data can be displayed and/or sent to the calculators for analysis, i.e. rate of infection over time. (The disease PS was originally an illustrative story used to explain PSs as a divergent use of technology will students moving about as they engage in the simulation as opposed to huddled around a SIMs game on a screen (Colella, 2000); thus, this PS does not involve physical embodiment which is not what Coletta was advocating. I believe the mobile hand-held vision has not yet been realized, but definitely could be if software was developed for current handhelds.)
Another example, the understanding functions PS involves moving from understanding what a function is and then moving from rule descriptions to mathematical expressions. Students become points and move around the Cartesian coordinate system according to rules, i.e. “Move until your y-position is two times your x-position.” Then the collective data is displayed so students can compare their approach/results and develop the function; then they can experiment/manipulate the functions to see what happens. I have been doing something similar with two online applications that are specific to the linear and quadratic (2nd option) functions.
Use of this application could be incorporated within the GEM model (Khan, 2010). Initially, the students generate relationships between x and y when x is always double y first by entering the data for their chosen values and then comparing their result with the results of others. Then they evaluate their result next to the results of others to identify whether the pattern they believe exists is always true. Then they can modify their hypotheses and engage in another GEM cycle to understand another y and x relationship. The cycle could be continued indefinitely as more complicated relationships are discovered.
References:
Colella, V. (2000). Participatory Simulations: Building Collaborative Understanding through Immersive Dynamic Modeling. The Journal of Learning Sciences, 9(4), 471-500.
Khan, S. (2010). New pedagogies for teaching with computer simulations. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 20(3), 215-232.