Teachster: Allowing K12 Teachers to Create GISEnabled Lesson Plans

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Teachster Allowing K-12 Teachers to Create
GIS-Enabled Lesson Plans

• By Jeff LaBarge
• Advisor Dr. Haungs

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Overview of Presentation

• Motivation
• Problem with current solutions
• Teachster
• Using Teachster
• Implementation
• Evaluation
• Future Work

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Motivation

• Under certain conditions computing technology
  improves learning and teaching in the primary and
  secondary grades (children from the ages 5 to
  18)norris

Cathleen Norris

• Norris, C., Soloway, E., and Sullivan, T. 2002.
  Examining 25 years of technology in U.S.
  education. Commun. ACM 45, 8 (Aug. 2002), 15-18.

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All Promises?

• To a first order approximation, the effect of
  computing technology over the past 25 years on
  primary and secondary education has been zero

Cathleen Norris

• Norris, C., Soloway, E., and Sullivan, T. 2002.
  Examining 25 years of technology in U.S.
  education. Commun. ACM 45, 8 (Aug. 2002), 15-18.

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Software To Improve Student Learning

• Learner Centered Design (LCD)
• Geographical Information Systems (GIS)

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Achilles Heal Teacher vs XML
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Teacher Focused

• Gatekeepers Soloway
• Must meet needs of teachers
• Time
• State standards
• Computer/Network availability
• Lack of technical expertise
• Limited IT support

• Hsi, S. and Soloway, E. 1998. Learner-centered
  design addressing, finally, the unique needs of
  learners. In CHI 98 Conference Summary on Human
  Factors in Computing Systems (Los Angeles,
  California, United States, April 18 - 23, 1998).
  CHI '98. ACM Press, New York, NY, 211-212.

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Solution Teachster
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Solution Teachster

• Teacher Focused
• Instant Preview
• Analogous to teacher books
• Teachers generate lesson content

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Teacher-focused Administrative Features

• Integrated state standards
• Classroom management

• Teacher notes

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Teacher Generated Interactive Text Exercises

• Interactive links to media

• WYSIWYG Text Editor

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Dynamic Linking

• Preview Links

• Link to Images, Videos, or Landmarks

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Supplemental Images
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Supplemental Images

• Images Currently in Lesson

• Helpful Descriptions

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Adding Additional Images

• Images stored locally on teachers computer

• Images from Yahoo

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Supplemental Videos
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Supplemental Videos

• Current Videos

• Consistent description functionality

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Supplemental Interactive GIS maps

• Local Videos

• Yahoo Video Search

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Supplemental GIS Landmarks

• Current Landmarks

• Consistent description functionality

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Adding Landmarks Cont.

• Local Landmark Images

• Yahoo Image Search

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Adding Landmarks Cont.

• Enter GIS coordinates manually

• Get coordinates by exploring interactive GIS map

• Yahoo Local / Map Search

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Adding / Removing GIS Layers

• Add and remove by simply checking a box
• Recall not required

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Publishing Lesson To Server
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Implementation

• General Architecture
• XML / Mapster Preview
• Asset Hubs
• Yahoo Search API
• List Models

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General Architecture
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High Level Data Flow
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Asset Hubs
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Yahoo Image Search API
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Evaluation

• Formative User-Centered Design (Design Phase)
• Ms. Heather Roberts
• Mr. Dennis Billings
• Ms. Lynda Horton
• User Testing (Final Evaluation)
• Ms. Sarah Foss
• Ms. Allison Clarabut
• Ms. Nancy LaBarge

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Results Formative User-Centered Design

• Observational evaluation method
• Include users early and continuously
• Improves Usability

• Gabbard, J. L., Hix, D., and Swan, J. E. 1999.
  User-Centered Design and Evaluation of Virtual
  Environments. IEEE Comput. Graph. Appl. 19, 6
  (Nov. 1999), 51-59.

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Formative Results (subset)
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Results User Testing

• Applied Experimentation
• Test if product usable by intended population to
  achieve their tasks

• Dumas, J. F. and Redish, J. C. 1993 A Practical
  Guide to Usability Testing. 1st. Greenwood
  Publishing Group Inc.

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Tasks

• Using techniques from MedlinePlus
• Teachers perform tasks
• Five minutes to explore
• Add text exercise
• Add image
• Add landmark
• Link to image from text

• Cogdill, K. (1999). MEDLINEplus Interface
  Evaluation Final Report. University of Maryland
  Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory, August
  1999. http//citeseer.ist.psu.edu/cogdill99medline
  plus.html

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Evaluation Observations

• Mapster preview tabs not intuitive starting point
• File menus as primary navigation
• Select image before entering description
• Many small text exercises
• Yahoo search capabilities
• Highlighting for creating links

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Verbal Suggestions

• Browser version
• Online repository of examples
• Integrate with traditional libraries
• Add step-by-step instructions
• Provide reverse links
• Support for ESL students

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Additional Feedback

• Linking from text exercise
• Ive searched for hours online to find a tool
  like this. The major problems with text books is
  that you cant link. Mrs. Foss

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Future Work

• Searchable Internet Lesson Repository
• Independence From Server
• Integration with traditional libraries
• Support for students who dont speak English as
  first language
• Continued User Testing
• Software Engineering build as a team

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Conclusions

• Software can improve education
• Must be teacher-centered
• Teachster is progress
• Future research needed to improve and integrate

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Questions?

• Contact Info
• jefflabarge_at_gmail.com