Interactive Portfolio: E-learning
JASON Foundation
The JASON Foundation is a nonprofit organization promoting the use
of technology to make science education more participatory. ERG
has a long-standing relationship with JASON and has developed and
is developing various e-learning applications.
The JASON Project
One example of our work with the JASON Foundation includes The JASON
Project. This site introduces teachers to the "JASON Experience"
to consider whether they are meeting national testing standards
for their students while simultaneously integrating technology in
the classroom. This piece is more marketing in focus, but serves
as the launching point for various Web-based classes and Web-based
learning activities to give teachers an impression of what the JASON
Web environment is like.
The site includes video footage from the rainforest expedition
and the Titanic expedition as well as pop-up screens and lots of
icons and illustrations.
The JASON Expeditions
ERG's ongoing support includes curriculum development for the annual
"expedition," a live interactive broadcast of scientists
conducting field work in some of the world's more exotic locations.
The "expedition" also provides a mechanism to help teachers
assess student mastery of information covered; ERG developed an
innovative online tool that allows teachers to build a custom test
in minutes.
Tech Notes:
- Online form creation in response to user selections.
- Automated randomizing of selected test entries with answer
key.
- Client-side interactions in Perl with Oracle backend.
- Illustrations created to accompany most questions.
The JASON expedition sites are proprietary. You can view two representative
screen shots to get an idea of the design:
Blackboard Sites
In other e-learning projects, ERG created a 4-week teacher workshop
using Blackboard as the Learning Management System (LMS). The content
was based on JASON's Hawaiian expedition and illustrated hands-on
activities teachers could implement to help students learn about
the Hawaiian Islands.
ERG maintained the chat rooms, archived message board discussions,
and took the lead on helping participants register. The course is
housed on a JASON server with the Blackboard application, so the
chatrooms and message boards are unavailable, but the content, images,
and layout ERG developed are available:
Currently, ERG is working with JASON's Mathemagica team to build
16 online courses for teachers of mathematics. The courses, deployed
in Blackboard, include functionality similar to those used in the
Hawaiian expedition.
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