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Constructing Modern Math/Science: Using Modeling Technology in Education

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After Brian Silverman spoke about Playful invention, and using programming to spark learning, Carolyn Staudt from the Concord Consortium spoke on Modeling technology.

Everything the consortium produces is Open Source, and everything they put out "changes educational methods, goals, content, materials development and distribution and professional development."
  • She demonstrated the Molecular Workbench software which allows you to simulate atomic structure.
  • Molecular Rover, which shows atomic motion in different states of matter. She demonstrated flying through helium gas to view atomic motion.
  • Inquiry questions are built in to the software, and students are asked to take snapshots of the models to prove their theories.
  • Now they are working on "Evolution Readiness" for 2nd and 3rd graders!
  • She said that Models could work with other social science topics as well.
  • Now she's working on grabing data with inexpensive equipment like cellphones, gps, cameras, etc...
Her presentation can be found here.
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