Jonassen+-+Mindtools

Computers as Mindtools for Engaging Learners in Critical Thinking By David H. Jonassen,- Chad Carr,- Hsiu-Ping Yueh

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Presentation and Written work by: Ariel May, Corinne Cunard, Siu Kong Sit, Stacie Wendland, & Tristan Strömberg

=Introduction = 

Mindtools are computer-based applications that help students develop critical thinking through inputting and organizing information. By engaging learners in the process of storing their knowledge, students become the “designer” and computers become their “mindtools” for interpreting their data. This use of computers shifts the function of technology as something that students learn from to a tool that students learn with. Some examples of Mindtools include spreadsheets, web-based programs, and communication boards. They are easy to use, interactive, and low-cost.

There are several classifications of Mindtools including semantic organization tools, dynamic modeling tools, information interpretation tools, knowledge construction tool, and conversation and collaboration tools.

=Semantic Organization Tools =  Semantic Organization Tools help learners analyze and organize information. These tools include Databases and Semantic Networking.

 Databases
Databases allow users to store and organize information, much like a filing cabinet. Information is sorted and divided into fields with descriptions for each element of the content. By constructing and categorizing information, learners use critical thinking skills, identify interrelationships, and locate relevant information.

** Semantic Networking: **
Visual screen tools for producing concept maps. These tools require learners to draw visual connections to related content, providing spatial representation of ideas and interrelationships. Constructing semantic networks requires learners to analyze the relationships among the content they are studying. [|SemNet], Learning Tool, [|Inspiration], [|Mind Mapper]

=<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Dynamic Modeling Tools =

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Help learners describe the dynamic relationships among ideas. Dynamic modeling tools <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">include spreadsheets, expert systems, systems modeling tools, and microworlds.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Spreadsheets
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Spreadsheets are computerized, numerical record keeping systems that may be used as Mindtools. Spreadsheets work with quantitative information that can be used to model mathematical logic that is implied by calculations. For example, spreadsheets can be used in chemistry and physics classes to calculate quantitative relationships. Spreadsheets are flexible tools that can support abstract reasoning and problem solving activities. Such forms of analysis require higher order reasoning which engages the student.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Expert Systems
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">An expert system is a computer program that stimulates the way human experts solve problems—an artificial decision maker. In other words, an expert system is a computer program used to advise non-experts. Expert systems can give financial advice, identify items (ex: plants, rocks, animals), help play strategy games, and can tell geologists where to drill for oil. Expert systems consist of 1) a user interface, 2) inference engine and a 3) knowledge base. The development of expert systems requires the learner to articulate casual knowledge, so building expert systems results in a deeper understanding of the subject matter.

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=<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Systems Modeling Tools = <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">There a number of tools for developing complex mental representations, which is essential for students develop their complex learning. One of these tools is Stella. Stella is program that can be used for building simulations of dynamic systems and processes with interactive and interdependent components. In Figure # Stella is used in an English class to help tenth grade students describe how the boys’ lost of hope drives the increasing power of the best in Willing Golding’s novel, The Lord of the Flies. The model of the beast power represents the factors that contributed to the strength of the beast in the book, including fear and resistance. In this model each component opened, so that values for each component can be inputted as constants or variables. Variables can be stated as equations containing numerical relationships among any of the variables connected to it. The resulting model can be run, changing the values of faith building, fear, and memory of home experienced by the boys while assessing the effects on their belief about being rescued and the strength of the beast within them. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Microworlds
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Microworlds are exploratory learning environments or discovery spaces in which learners can navigate, manipulate or create objects, and tests their effects on one another. Microworld are controlled simulations of real-world phenomena that allows learners to control these phenomena. Video-based adventures games are microworlds that require players to master certain environments before moving on to the next environment. A major advantage with microworlds is that students are more inclined to focus on these adventure worlds. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Many Microworlds are being produced and made available for educational research projects, especially in math and science. In Mathematics, the Geometric Supposer (shown on Figure #) and Algebraic Supposer are one of the first programs that allowed users to test conjectures in geometry and algebra by constructing and manipulating geometric and algebraic objects in order to explore the relationships within and between these objects. This allow students to test predictions about geometric and algebraic proofs. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The SimCalc project is a program that teaches middle and high school students calculus concepts through Mathworlds, which is a microworld consisting of animated worlds and dynamic graphs in which actors move according to graphs. In this program students can understand important calculus ideas by moving actors in simulations and seeing the graphs of their activity. In Figure # we can see an activity where students match two motions, allowing them to see how velocity and position graphs are related. The student must match the motion of the green velocity graph to the red position graph by changing either graph. They then run the simulation to see if they are correct. Students may also use MathWorlds’s link to enter their own bodily motion. For instance, a student can run across the room, and sensing equipment would enter the motion into MathWorlds. Students can see plots of their motions and explore properties of their own motion. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">

=<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Information Interpretation Tools = <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">In this time of technology and information, there is a need for tools to help access and process the astounding amount of information being generated. These tools can do statistical analysis of data, allowing the user to slice,dice, graph and analyze their information in many different ways.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Visualization Tools
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The mind is able to input ideas visually, but it cannot output ideas visually. We are unable to dump mental images. Existing tools to help do this are not general purpose, but are specific to the genre. An example of this used in education, is for molecular visualization as an aide in Chemistry <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Recent advances in this genre of tool are invaluable for all sorts of disciplines including the sciences, architecture, the arts and manufacturing.

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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Knowledge Construction Tools
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">“Construct” is the operative word in this category. These tools reinforce learning by having the user create models of concepts they have just learned. We know from Bloom’s Taxonomy that create and construct are higher level learning tasks. The user will construct a project using links from various sources that are related to their topic. “(Web 2.0) In the past, knowledge creation and authoring were the monopoly of a select few, while most people were at the consumer end. With advent of a worldwide internet connectivity, many people are contributing to knowledge authoring through the interactive, collaborative, and open tools of Web 2.0. Knowledge construction is being democratized.” Wikipedia.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Hypermedia
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">A building block of information that can be compiled to be part of a larger entity. The World Wide Web is the classic example of hypermedia. It consists of nodes that are made accessible through links and hypertext and can be dynamic. When the paper was written in 1998, hypermedia had typically been used as a system which learners could browse, and with limited tools they were able to create their own base to reflect their own understanding of ideas. As a learning tool, this media helps cement a concept by the user to construct and not just memorize the concept. The World Wide Web is now available for everyone to use and participate in. It allows the exchange of ideas and serves so many purposes.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Conversation Tools
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">In the past students were not asked to contribute their opinions on what they were learning, they were just asked to memorize facts and figures. Now because the constructivist nature of learning has become so popular and relevant, tools that facilitate this type of learning are being developed. Online telecommunications include Chats, MOOs, MUDs and videoconferencing. These tools allow students to have interpersonal exchanges and facilitate collecting information and group problem solving. Information collecting can be done in database creation, e-publishing, e-field trips and pooled data analysis. To participate in this exchange of information the student must be able to interpret messages, consider appropriate responses and construct coherent replies. The author is concerned that students will not be able to do these tasks because in the past they have rarely been asked to contribute their opinions on topics. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">At the time the paper was written, an example of this type of conversation tool was The Collaboratory Notebook. It was a system used to support intra and inter school science projects. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">It allowed the student to pose a question or a conjecture facilitating responses from contributors around the globe. This system is considered a scaffolding structure for conversations by requiring specific kinds of responses to messages. This field of collaboratory conversation systems is growing by leaps and bounds. The Collaboratory Notebook that Jonassen referred to in his paper, no longer exists, but hundreds if not thousand of other tools of this type have evolved since 1998. Wikis, Google Docs and Social Networking are all derivatives of Collaborative Software/Tools. A Google Search of “Collaborative Tools” listed over one hundred software related tools that were used for science projects alone. With the advent of cloud computing it is even easier that it was a few years ago to have instantaneous collaboration as opposed to a delay of waiting for an email message to be sent/received.

=<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Rationales for Using Technology as Mindtools = <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">While most technology is used merely to inform a learner about a subject (e.g. wikipedia), mindtools are technological programs that allow the learner to ‘teach’ the program themselves. As a result, Mindtools require learners to think hard about both the subject matter being studied as well as generating thoughts that would be impossible without the tool. Thus both the technology and learner are improved. Think, for instance, of this Wikispace page; it provides a way for a collaborative learning and user input while the program is enhanced through user participation. Mindtools themselves are “unintelligent” programs. (14). Rather than perform the cognitive functions requires, mindtool programs serve primarily to off-load some of the memorization and laborious tasks that bogs down most learners. This allows the learner to think more productively. It is the user him/herself who creates everything that goes into the program. The learner is the teacher, while the program is the receiver of the information.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Mindtools as constructivist technology
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Mindtools are a clear example of constructivist learning. Constructivist education tries to create an environment where learners actively participate and construct their own knowledge. By working with the programs to, for example, create a database, they are “constructing their own conceptualization of the organization of a content domain” (13)

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Assessment
http://www.polleverywhere.com/multiple_choice_polls/eEpQcnlPXbgwZX7

=Reference= Jonassen, D., Carr, C., & Yeuh, H.P. (1998). Computers as Mindtools for Engaging Learners in Critical Thinking. //TechTrends,// v43 n2 (pp24-32).