A multidisciplinary team will examine the application of core distributed system techniques to an important area of social concern: the coordination of multiple learners in educational activities. Increasingly, learners are bringing mobile computing devices to class. Equally importantly, modern educational activities in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) curricula require learners to take roles, contribute ideas, solve aspects of a larger problem, and work together as a team. These activities imply systematic coordination of learner participation. Yet today's classroom technologies provide only ad hoc solutions to the problem of coordination. Investigators at three complementary institutions will collaborate to determine if the distributed computing concept of tuple spaces can provide a robust, flexible, sustainable solution.
This project team will develop methods and knowledge that better align social needs and distributed computational techniques at their foundations, thus addressing "the interactions and complex interdependencies of information systems and social systems". The investigators will build on the recent expansion of the distributed computing concept of tuple spaces to mobile devices and social uses, employing the Java language and handheld or laptop devices. Thus, they will exploit both long-standing and recent advances in data structures, networking, and algorithms to enhance the design of distributed systems that support innovation in STEM education, seeking to maximize educational benefits. This research will investigate the soundness of this alignment, consider expressiveness and performance characteristics, investigate programmer cognition, and evaluate sample applications in educational settings. The technical work will tie to a maturing, cumulative body of research on effective learning in groups. The broader impact of this research lies in the potential for improving math and science education for all students.
