Panel for ICALT2005

Educational Computing in Global Digital Classrooms (G1:1)

[Duration: Two hours]

Panelists:

David Liu, Taiwan (Chair)
Kinshuk , New Zealand
Hiroaki Ogata , Japan
Elliot Soloway, USA
Lam-For Kwok, Hong Kong
Ben Chang, Taiwan

Contact persons: Tak-Wai Chan: chan@cl.ncu.edu.tw and Kinshuk: kinshuk@ieee.org

G1:1 or G one-on-one , stands for Global digital classrooms with One student learning with One computing device. Also, 1:1 implies one times one equal to one, whereas the first one denotes the student and the second one denotes the computing device, and that the last one means that the student uses the device so neatly and snugly as if the device were an integral part of the student.

In next few years, a growing number of students will possess some kind of portable computing devices equipped with wireless communication capabilities. These devices will be used frequently and integrally in the classroom and elsewhere in the course of instruction, become as indispensable learning tools like pencils and chalkboards, yet enable students to learn more quickly, more deeply, and with more fun.

There are two premises. First, in next ten years or so, most parents and teachers, in K-12 or universities, will encounter more and more compelling examples or stories around them about the use of such devices for enhancing learning and teaching. Second, again, in next ten years and so, the prices of these learning devices will become affordable to the majority of parents or college students, and wireless services and access to the Internet will be ubiquitously available in and out of schools or universities.

The panel will discuss these premises in terms of the potential for change in how, where and when students learn and whether such change is likely to be greater in the next ten years than in any previous time in the past 200 years of formal school history or the even longer history of university education. The panel will specifically focus on the responsibility of researchers to guide this change.

Another issue of discussion will be the development of global network to leverage the impact factor. In practical terms, the panelists will discuss the emergence of a Global Network of Component Exchange Centers. Typically researchers are research product producers, but we believe that they should also play a role of research product consumers in the sense that their research products can be tested and used widely by the larger G1:1 community. In this way, G1:1 will become a network of impacts. For this purpose, Component Exchange Centers (CECs) will need to be developed for some types of components. With network of CECs, research groups over the world will benefit by rapid research and development, sharing components, being able to combine research results, etc.

A component in this respect usually refers to a piece of software, a unit of digital content material (in short, material), and perhaps a piece of hardware (probably together with some communication protocols). C omponents for one-on-one educational computing will typically include:

Assuming a G1:1 member is specialized in at least one type of components, being a CEC of components of their expertise allows a G1:1 member to have substantial contribution to the G1:1 community by providing one or more services, perhaps of different levels as listed below:

• Building an information site or an inventory of components
• Building its own library of components
• Coordinating with other research centers to develop common language or standards of components, if needed, to facilitate communications among G1:1 members
• Exchanging components with other CECs

The panel will discuss the experiments being carried out in Asia Pacific Component Exchange Center and open up dialog for collaboration around the world.