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Northwestern University Projects (since 2003)
NetLogo
Agent-Based Modeling software for children and research, developed by the Center for Connected Learning and Computer-Based Modeling (Uri Wilensky, director) at Northwestern Univesity
Website (free download): http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo
Bifocal Modeling (formerly Hybrid Modeling/NetLogoLab)
Putting together agent-based modeling, tangible interfaces, and real-world scientidic experiments.
More about: http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogolab
Papers: see publications page
MaterialSim
A set of agent-based microworlds to explore Materials Science.
Website: http://ccl.northwestern.edu/materialsim
Documents:
Blikstein, P. & Wilensky, U. (2004) MaterialSim: an agent-based simulation toolkit for Materials Science learning. Proceedings of the International Conference on Engineering Education. Gainesville, Florida. Paper published at the International Conference for Engineering Education (2004)
Independent study with Professor Carla Pugh, from Northwestern's Feinberg School of Medicine. We are investigating how expert and novice doctors perform medical examinations, using mannequins equipped with various sensors. Doctors are also interviewed and answer a questionnaire about their previous experience. From this data, we are trying to identify patterns in both profiles (expert and novice), and creating new technological tools and learning environments for medical students to learn how to perform medical exams.
Teacher's mental models of the learners' minds
How do teachers think that the mind of their students work? How do they imagine that learning happens inside the minds of their pupils?
Documents:
Book chapter in Evaluation in Online Learning. Ed. Loyola, Brazil (forthcoming)
MIT Media Lab Projects (2000-2003)
The city that we want (A cidade que a gente quer)
This project, conducted together with the Secretary of Education of São Paulo, Agência Estado and the Bradesco Foundation, is introducing new ideas and technologies in the Brazilian public and non-profit education system, involving more than 50 schools. The main idea is to have children identify the problems in their community, design solutions using multiple expressive technologies and computational technology and implement the changes in partnership with the local government or community groups.
More about...
Linux and the Open Source movement proved that there are other ways to provide technology to people. The commercial, corporate, centralized model is not the only one. Departing from our experience working in developing countries such as Thailand and Brazil, we envisioned a new way of putting technology in the hands of students at a low cost. The Gogo Board framework is a concrete step towards providing sustainable, low cost computational technologies to low-income areas. The Board itself, designed by Arnan Sipitakiat at MIT, costs approximately 5 times less than most commercial products, and can be assembled locally with components found in local stores in Brazil, USA or Thailand. In more than 50 Brazilian schools, we are providing low-cost, open-source digital equipment to children, schools and non-formal learning environments. Co-developing technologies with local partners is one viable alternative for introducing digital technologies without creating even more dependency.
Official website: http://www.gogoboard.org
Documents in Portuguese:
Comandos da Placa GoGo para o Imagine Logo
Como fazer sensores
How can we make technology available to all children? Expensive commercial toolkits are certainly not the answer, especially in developing countries, where they can cost more than the average salary of a teacher. Together with low-cost, open-source devices as the Gogo board, we developed new methodologies to work with found and scrap materials, broken electronic equipment, broken toys, and transforming them into new, expressive projects conceived by the kids and teachers. We have been working for more than three years with the Secretariat of Education of São Paulo (Brazil), as well as the Bradesco Foundation, within the "City that we want" project, where children are building models and solutions for their city using low-cost materials.
One of the results of this work, conducted together with Arnan Sipitakiat (the designer of the Gogo Board), is that it has made possible for more than 3,000 students from public school in Brazil to have contact with robotics and computer programming.
Coordinated by Seymour Papert and David Cavallo, the Learning Hub project envisions to form a global network innovative educational experiences and build critical mass towards larger-scale change in educational.
Read the paper-manifest on the Learning Hubs: English (PDF) and Spanish (PDF)
Could we make a device for people to build computation with their own hands? To compute, all we need are boolean operations: this project implemented them without electricity, but with water. This project appeared on Slashdot.com in 2003, and had thousands of pageviews at that time. It has been used in some universities across the US for teaching undergraduates about digital logic.
More about...
University of São Paulo (1995-2000)
Monte Carlo or the meaning of life (Monte Carlo ou o sentido da vida)
Undergraduate thesis
Two Provost Research Grants awarded
Special report on the University of São Paulo Newspaper
Multimedia project consisting of a thesis, 30-minute documentary, CD-ROM and website, about computer modeling of the behavior of materials (grain growth in metals).
Official website: http://www.pmt.usp.br/paulob/montecarlo
Other projects and endeavors
Engineer 2001 (1999-2000)
Anchor of the "Engineer 2001" TV series, a project funded by the Brazilian government and coordinated by the Vanzolini Foundation (USP) for reshaping the teaching and learning of engineering in Brazil. (Engenheiro 2001)
Official website: http://www.engenheiro2001.org.br/
Conception and direction of this distance learning course for professional website developers. This innovative product was the most succesful commercial product in Brazil in its field, with more than 6.000 students in just six months.
More about it at www.tecnokit.com.br
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