Exploring the Potential of Web-based Social Process Experiential Simulations

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In the fall of 1996, the Arkansas Archeological Survey and the Department of Foreign Languages at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville received a $180,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities Teaching With Technology program. The goal of this grant initiative was to encourage creation of content-rich, computer-based materials for teaching history, literature, and languages. The grant team produced a CD-ROM called First Encounters: Native Americans and Europeans in the Mississippi Valley. The CD-ROM was designed to teach students how to critically evaluate differing multicultural perspectives using historical sources. A post-development evaluation of these materials yielded favorable student ratings and successful learning outcomes, however we decided to add a second generation of instructional improvements. The primary goal of this article is to describe the implementation and preliminary evaluation of one of these improvements, a web-based social process experiential simulation prototype called Two Worlds. Two Worlds was designed to enhance critical thinking by engaging users to explore a digital micro-world, participate in role-plays, and construct mind maps through and with collaborative electronic tools. ********** A primary goal of the First Encounters project was to help students answer the question: How does one derive from the archeological and historical record, an understanding of what happened in the past? Therefore, the First Encounters CD-ROM was designed to engage students in an active investigation of Native American and European encounters using original historical sources such as texts, maps, artworks, and archeological finds. We chose to emphasize the Lower Mississippi Valley because a great range of cultural encounters took place in this region. Since French and Spanish explorers wrote many of the original documents, we also developed language-learning tracks, making the software useful for teaching across a multiple-subject curriculum. The English language track takes students through a detailed presentation of historical and anthropological materials describing encounters between Native American communities and French, Spanish, and British explorers, traders, missionaries, and colonists in the Mississippi Valley during the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries. The CD-ROM organized these materials within the following subject models within the English track: Two Worlds, First Encounters, Views of the Land, Exchanges, Interactions, and Legacies. The French and Spanish tracks each provided four topical modules designed for enhancing foreign language skills while studying Native American and European encounters within the English track. THEORETICAL UNDERPINNINGS AND INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN STRATEGIES In recent years, many researchers have argued that the quality of technology-based learning is greatly impacted by the presence or absence of interactivity. Unfortunately, a concise definition for interactive learning does not exist. Therefore, we evaluated and chose an instructional design model by considering some of the seminal research on this subject. The following paragraphs summarize these ideas and explain how they are applied. In 1990, Moore proposed the theory of transactional distance, which established the basis for most current definitions of interactivity. Originally specific to distance education, this theory asserts that whenever direct access to the instructor is limited, three different types of interactions need to take place: learner-instructor interactions, learner-content interactions, and learner-learner interactions. Since limited access to the instructor is also a typical feature of technology-based learning environments Moore’s ideas may also be applied to the development of this type courseware. Learner-instructor interactions provide a context for instructors to model and students to imitate discipline specific professional practice.