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Narrator:
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In this scenario, we are going to consider how teachers, master teachers, and software developers might collaborate to improve both software and its classroom use. In the
not-too-distant future, we imagine supporting this collaboration with an envisoned internet-based environment we call "Studio," that integrates and enhances capabilities we have available
today.
Our focus here is on the concept--not weaving together the most advanced technology such as internet telephony and videolinks possible today.
In the scenario, we will explore the
possibilities of "Studio" using a local area net version of the MathWorlds software from the SimCalc project, led by Jim Kaput, Jeremy Roschelle, and Ricardo Nemirovsky. The goal of SimCalc is to enable inner city students to begin learning Calculus in middle school. SimCalc is succeeding at
this goal through the use of innovative software that combines edittable piecewise linear graphs and simulations.
But in the day to day life of SimCalc use in classrooms, the improvisations the
teachers would like to make are often either not evident at first glance or are unavailable as yet. The teacher in our scenario is able to make strides toward overcoming these barriers using the
capabilities that would be provided in Studio.
In the first part of our scenario, we come upon a teacher who--several months after attending the Math Forum summer workshop--is browsing the Math
Forum website in the context of a multi-user virtual environment called TAPPED IN. TAPPED IN is an SRI-developed on-line teacher professional development institute, used
by The Math Forum Project, among other groups. You can find a paper about TAPPED IN in these CSCL Proceedings. Math Forum is committed to supporting teachers on-line once they are back in the classroom
and the generic knowledge introduced in the workshop must be "tailored" to meet the needs of their local teaching conditions. The teacher was first introduced to MathWorlds in the Math Forum
summer institute.
What you are about to see is a wide-area network dramatization of a scenario that involves some sleight of hand concerning the network that allows real-time sharing and control
of computational objects in collaborative space. But it is based on real teacher problems, real human resources available today, and real MathWorlds software and the TAPPED IN multi-user virtual
environment from SRI.
We now begin our story at Hilary Clinton Middle School...
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