Social Computing Class Presentation
- 1. d SINQ Scientific INQuiry Social Computing December 12, 2011 Michael Gubbels June Ahn, Ph.D. Graduate Student Assistant Professor Department of Computer Science College of Information Studies College of Education Johnny Wu Graduate Student Department of Computer Science
- 2. The Problem How can children be encouraged to think about their authentic questions that arise in their day-to-day experience using an inquiry process rooted in scientific methods? Challenges ● Encouraging scientific thinking about authentic questions ● Present conceputal model of scientific inquiry process ○ Not intimidating or boring ○ Relevant ● Focusing on informal learning contexts
- 3. Informal Learning Context i.e., Situations that are informal in their setting and organization Example In a grocery store, a parent answers their child's questions about UPC bar codes or food origins. Characteristics 1. Questions tend to arise organically, so their askers are automatically engaged 2. Parents can present new concepts using a language that promotes understanding 3. Learning tends to seemlessly follow questions To design and build an online environment where we can take advantage of Goal these characteristics and this informal style of learning can unfold.
- 6. "Why is this poop on fire?"
- 7. Project Design an online environment that supports and scaffolds a collaborative inquiry process for questions that arise in day-to-day experience. Contributions 1. Use of collective intelligence to provide Not instructional scaffolding mutually exclusive 2. Explicitly incorporating instructional scaffolding into interface design
- 9. "I wonder why some people get hungry faster than others?" Votes "I get hungry fast." "Solving this will help people feel better about themselves" "Curious about this too I always wonder this every day" "I’m one of the people who gets hung. faster"
- 10. Observations of KidsTeam Session ● No votes against questions ● Reasons for voting fall into three categories 1. I have also wondered about this. 2. This affects me directly. 3. I find this interesting. ● These form the basis of the voting mechanism in our prototype.
- 12. Demonstration Link to SINQ
- 13. User Study Summary ● Interface functioned as expected ● Easy to ask and contribute to questions ● Users felt the interface helped them ask good questions Some flow of site (expectations, badges) was unclear