Review of the Literature

VLE Project Review Tables

For Comparison of VLE Projects

Organizing Question	Project-specific Answer (and Reference)
#1: JASPER
What are descriptors of the project?	Research group: Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt Learner age group: Middle School, primarily 11- 14 yrs, when taken into SFT project, 1- 4 grades were included. Technical description: Began as “The Adventures of Jasper Woodbury”, as video stories that were the anchors of activities that were blended with CD-Rom and online access to tools to solve the problems, plus activities in classroom with peers (blended approach). Jasper expanded to be part of SFT (Schools for Thought) and now is part of STAR.Legacy, (Software Technology for Action and Reflection Legacy)website and design tool for building custom learning environments that use the Jasper “anchors” for classroom use, so remaining blended, but more online than when it began. Time in development and use: early 1990s to today.
How did the project evolve over time?	Project names: The Jasper Project to Schools for Thought to STAR.Legacy In the mid-90s, the Jasper project became part of the SFT (Schools for Thought) project and collaborated with: FCL (Fostering Communities of Learners)(Brown & Campione,1996) CSILE (Computer-Supported Intentional Learning Environments) (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1993) SMART (Scientific and Mathematical Arenas for Refining Thinking) (Barron, Schwartz, et. al. 1998)
What pedagogic approaches were used?	Began as a largely a constructivist approach which CGTV called “anchored instruction” but also used a situative approach in that the problems were situated in meaningful problem-solving environments that “help novices appreciate the significance (connectedness) of the new information they encounter”. (CTGV, 2000). Design was expanded to include community of learners ideas. (CGTV 1990 and 1997) The learning environments created in this series were reviewed from the point of view of the learner, the knowledge to be taught, the assessment needed, and the community of teacher, peers, and external experts that could be accessed to help solve problems. They described this as the “four features of effective learning environments: Learner-centered Knowledge-centered Assessment-centered Community-centered In creating the aspects of the learner-centered environment, CTGV used formative assessment practices, based on the work of Vygotsky and Brown and Campione (CTGV, 2000 p. 39) to assess the amount of help the learner needed to solve the anchored activity problem and provide that help, using the principle of zones of proximal development.
What key design features were developed to support a learner’s construction of knowledge? Situated learning? Zones of proximal development and/or formative assessment?	“anchored instruction” approach: “The major idea has been to situate (anchor) learning in meaningful problem-solving environments that invite sustained inquiry about important academic topics.” Helps students to: understand the kinds of problems that experts (mostly in science and math) encounter and see how experts solve problems. Integrate their knowledge by exploring the same situation (anchor) from multiple perspectives ( e.g., as a scientist, mathematician, historian) Result: design provided a way to focus simultaneously on content knowledge and and problem-solving skills. Design features: video stories were created that had characters with problems to solve. These stories were “anchors” for activities learners did to help the characters in the stories and solve the problem. For example: in Rescue at Boone Meadow, the character Emily needs help rescuing an eagle. In order to do so, student must understand many aspects of the problem, such as the payload the ultralight can carry given the fuel needed for the rescue. As part of its design evolution, (CTGV, 2000, p. 53) the Jasper series was “repurposed” to allow learners to create “smart tools” to solve the problems in the activity. For example, in Rescue at Boone Meadow, students create a smart tool to determine travel time needed for the rescue.
What key design features were developed to support the creation of a community of learners?	With the help of Brown & Campione’s FCL, the Jasper project became more learner-centered by supporting student participation and leadership. Jasper developed CSILE ideas to help learners collaborate electronically, reflect more by writing, and access experts electronically. Most importantly, Jasper incorporated FCL ideas to make Jasper and its descendents more community-centered. (CGTV, 2000). The key change was to base the environment on community norms that supported people’s abilities to participate comfortably and learn from one another. Students learned to work in groups and “pool their insights and expertise.” (Vye, Goldman, et al, 1997). Another key design change over time was to link students and teachers to other members of the community, with the result that students were more able to make connections between what happens inside and outside of school, and the community was better able to understand what was going on in their schools. (CGTV, 2000 p. 72 and 78 respectively).
What are the empirical results, if any?	Because of the length and evolution of the Jasper project, there are various empirical results captured as various points. In the “Jasper 9-state implementation project” (CGTV, 1994a) Jasper adventures were used in 9 states. Results were: higher scores on tests measuring complex problem solving and attitudes toward mathematics, without loss on standardized test scores on state achievement tests. In a study of students doing Jasper-only activities about statistics vs. students doing Jasper activites plus SMART Challenges (extensions of the program), students who did both scored higher on an assessment of their statistical skills. Both groups improved from pre- to post-test. (CTGV, 2000) When part of the SFT project in 1996-1997, first graders in SFT increased the state achievement test (TCAP) scores in both mathematics and language. (CTGV, 1998a, 1998b) An interesting assessment fact: SFT students know more about how to use technology and how to use it for learning than non-SFT students. (Vye, Schwartz, et.al. 1998)

Organizing Question	Project-specific Answer (and Reference)
#2: PUPPET
What are descriptors of the project?	Research group: A multidisciplinary team from the School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK, Aalborg University, Denmark, DFKI, Germany. PUPPET is part of the European Union’s i# ESE (Experimental School Environments) research program. Learner age group: 4 to 8 years old, mostly pre-literate. Technical description: PUPPET is a 2D and 3D virtual environment delivered on a desktop computer and described as a “virtual theatre for young children to support learning through playing.” Time in development and use: Dates not certain, late 1990s to early 2000s.
How did the project evolve over time? Project name: PUPPET	The focus of the research was still on the design of the environment and no assessment of learners had been made at the time. The design itself evolved in response to studying children’s interactions with it, but it is too early in the implementation cycle for the effort to evolve based on learners’ experiences with the final version of the environment.
What pedagogic approaches were used?	The researchers began their development efforts with the observation “one of the key properties of virtual environments is their ability to captivate. (Scaife, 2001). Using a model the researchers call “external cognition,” the environment supports both individual engagement within the virtual theatre and reflective thought outside it to “offload cognitive effort” into an external representation such as writing and editing, as well as discussion among children. (Marshall, 2002)
What key design features were developed to support a learner’s construction of knowledge? Situated learning? Zones of proximal development and/or formative assessment?	This environment was designed for pre-literate children as a tool to promote narrative play as well as reflection about that play. The goal was not direct acquisition of knowledge, but an extending of learners’ imaginations. The learners constructed stories in the virtual theatre to help them develop their own sense of narrative. The assumption of this approach is that it will contribute both to their learners’ creativity and future literacy. As the developers described it: “to provide young children with a means of extending their existing repertoire of story telling by providing them with a new set of tools they could use to create, edit, direct, and act out plays in a virtual, imaginary setting. (Scaife, 2001) One of the features of this design approach is that it allows a “stepping out” of the story the child is immersed in to reflect on the story and view the story from different characters points of view, promoting their understanding of different roles in story development and enactment. The design of the environment was greatly affected by the fact that its users could not read. All commands in the interface and all directions for use had to be presented visually. This posed a significant problem for the designers, but later tests with learners of this age indicated that they succeeded. Research also was done in the early stages of the design to understand the competencies of children of this age group around interacting with both physical and virtual story settings.
What key design features were developed to support the creation of a community of learners?	The testing of the product was done in classrooms of children ages 4-6 and 7-8, usually in pairs. This indicates that the developers envision the environment being used by one or two children at a time, but not more. Teachers and adults were involved in the environment to help the child understand how to interact and to facilitate story development. Otherwise, no “greater community” was envisioned.
What are the empirical results, if any?	The results of the design studies indicated: Learners can understand the different interaction styles and switch between them. For example, they can choose between different avatars and understand the different point of view that avatar will have. Forms of representation for characters, animals, barn yard did not have to be elaborate. In fact, the visually rich environment was more distracting than inspiring. The more that is left to the children’s imaginations, the better they respond creatively. The children were able to create stories on their own without parts of the story given to them. Their ability to determine a beginning, middle, and end to the story was enhanced by switching from first person “in the play” mode to the third person writing and editing mode. This mode switching also helped them change the characters to behave differently to further the story, and then go back into the story and enact different experiences.

Organizing Question	Project-specific Answer (and Reference)
#3: GenScope
What are descriptors of the project?	Research group: Genscope Development Team from Concord Consortium and various universities such as the University of Georgia and an assessment team from Educational Testing Service Learner age group: Secondary school science students of multiple ability levels (basic science to honors science classes) Technical description: GenScope software initially ran on 33 Mhz Macintosh computers from the early 1990s, in computer labs, but over time Genscope was used on laptops in classrooms. Genscope presented different aspects of genetics information in graphic representations in multiple windows, coordinated with paper-based activities and assessments. GenScope was described as an “open-ended exploratory software tool.” (Hickey, 2003, p. 495) Time in development and use: Software development began in 1991, research collaboration began in 1995 between developers and the assessment team. Research reported in 2003.
How did the project evolve over time?	Project name: GenScope GenScope had 3 phases during which the environment changed from an environment that was rich in genetics exploratory activities to one that was aligned with its summative assessment. During this evolution, the researchers “narrowed” the scope and refined the activities to include more formative assessment and to better match the summative assessments that had been developed based on national standards for genetics content. The phases were: Year 1: Piloting, Revisions and Formative Assessments Years 2 and 3: Large-Scale Implementation and Evaluation Year 4: Follow-up Study
What pedagogic approaches were used?	The primary goal was to help learners develop a cognitive model of genetics based on the way experts in genetics solve genetics problems. Careful effort was made to align the learning with the assessment of that learning. To achieve this, during its evolution, the environment added more formative assessments to increase transfer from the GenScope environment to the assessment environment because Phase 1 research showed that students were not gaining a meaningful domain understanding in genetics. Once this was done, the entire environment worked well and summative assessments showed a significant gain in genetics domain knowledge and problem-solving abilities.
What key design features were developed to support a learner’s construction of knowledge? Situated learning? Zones of proximal development and/or formative assessment?	Most activities involved dragons. Learners used the windows in which key information about the organism, its DNA, its pedigree, and its chromosomes were displayed. Additional windows showed the meiosis process and the population showing the genetic trait in question, such as horns and wings. Learners worked back and forth in the various windows to gain knowledge about the dragons traits and heredity to solve problems posed by the paper-based activities. The students could construct their own knowledge by changing DNA order, genetic traits to look at, and causing the system to randomly trigger mutant traits such as albinism and double wings. When the initial open-ended exploratory environment yielded assessments that indicated the design had not focused sufficient attention on genetics concepts that could transfer to an assessment environment, the researchers used a situative analysis of transfer to “compare the resources that support meaningful participation in the learning environment.” (p.507) based on Greeno’s work on transfer. (Greeno, Smith, & Moore, 1993)
What key design features were developed to support the creation of a community of learners?	In the large scale implementation (Phase 2), there were 31 classes taught by 13 teachers. Many of the teachers were recruited for the study after they independently downloaded the software from the GenScope website. There is no indication in the research of any attempt made to create a community of learners in any of the phases, but the primary report of this environment focused on its development and assessment alignment and did not go in to detail about implementation.
What are the empirical results, if any?	In each phase, learners were assessed and the curriculum was revised to improve it in the areas shown as weak by the assessments. By the time the follow-up study was done with laptops in the classrooms and revised “Dragon Investigations” that aided transfer from the colorful interactive environment of GenScope to the paper-based assessments more like what students will encounter in large-scale testing, the results were truly impressive. The combined gains of the GenScope classes were significantly above the gains of a comparison class which followed the traditional genetics teaching approach with a textbook, showing F(1,43) = 15.7, p< .001 in pre- to post-test scores. The scores showed gains of 13.3 for the comparison (traditionally taught) class and 22.6 and 30.7 for the GenScope classes, with the lower scoring class using only the GenScope software but not the “Dragon Investigations” whereas the higher scoring class used the complete curriculum. The researchers concluded: “We believe it [the results reported above] demonstrates the potentially dramatic knowledge gains possible when teacher knowledge, curriculum, technology, classroom assessment, and external assessment are aligned towards well-defined, ambitious goals.” (Hickey, 2003 p. 527.)