Joel Drake

Quantified recess: design of an activity for elementary students involving analyses of their own movement data

Recess is often a time for children in school to engage recreationally in physically demanding and highly interactive activities with their peers. This paper describes a design effort to encourage fifth-grade students to examine sensitivities associated with different measures of center by having them analyze activities during recess using over the course of a week using Fitbit activity trackers and TinkerPlots data visualization software. We describe the activity structure some observed student behaviors during the activity. We also provide a descriptive account, based on video records and transcripts, of two students who engaged thoughtfully with their recess data and developed a more sophisticated understanding of when and how outliers affect means and medians.

Digital Physical Activity Data Collection and Use by Endurance Runners and Distance Cyclists

The introduction of sensor technologies to sports has allowed athletes to quantify and track their performance, adding an information-based layer to athletic practices. This information layer is particularly prevalent in practices involving formal competition and high levels of physical endurance, such as biking and running. We interviewed 20 athletes who participated in distance cycling or endurance running and also had experience using these technologies. This paper presents two cases and a number of shorter descriptive examples from these interviews that illustrate the factors salient to the introduction of these athletes to their respective sports, their continued participation in running or cycling, and their use of physical activity data. The effects of these data and logging practices among these individuals are examined, including some of the tensions that these athletes have with respect to quantifications of their performance and how they see themselves as athletic individuals in light of the increased presence of digital data. Educational implications are also discussed.

Appropriating Quantified Self Technologies to Support Elementary Statistical Teaching and Learning

Wearable activity tracking devices associated with the Quantified Self movement have potential benefit for educational settings because they produce authentic and granular data about activities and experiences already familiar to youth. This article explores how that potential could be realized through explicit acknowledgment of and response to tacit design assumptions about how such technologies will be used in practice and strategic design for use in a classroom. We argue that particular practical adaptations that we have identified serve to ensure that the classroom and educational use cases are appropriately considered. As an example of how those adaptations are realized in actual elementary classrooms, we describe an effort to provide fifth-grade students each with their own Fitbit activity trackers in the context of a multi-week unit exploring core ideas in elementary statistics. Observational descriptions and transcript excerpts of students and teachers discussing their own Fitbit data are presented to illustrate what opportunities exist to leverage youth familiarity with daily activities in a way that targets development of statistical thinking. Quantitative written test results showing learning gains and differences between traditional and wearable device-enhanced instruction are also presented. Improvement on several statistical thinking constructs is identified, including in the areas of data display, conceptions of statistics, modeling variability, and informal inference.

Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer science payload update

The Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer is a NASA Medium Class Explorer mission to perform a high-sensitivity, high resolution, all-sky survey in four infrared wavelength bands. The science payload is a 40 cm aperture cryogenically cooled infrared telescope with four 10242 infrared focal plane arrays covering from 2.8 to 26 μm. Mercury cadmium telluride (MCT) detectors are used for the 3.3 μm and 4.6 μm channels, and Si:As detectors are used for the 12 μm and 23 μm wavelength channels. A cryogenic scan mirror freezes the field of view on the sky over the 9.9-second frame integration time. A two-stage solid hydrogen cryostat provides cooling to temperatures less than 17 K and 8.3 K at the telescope and Si:As focal planes, respectively. The science payload collects continuous data on orbit for the seven-month baseline mission with a goal to support a year-long mission, if possible. As of the writing of this paper, the payload subassemblies are complete, and the payload has begun integration and test. This paper provides a payload overview and discusses instrument status and performance.

The Role of Affordances and Motives in Explaining How and Why Students Use Computer-based Scaffolds

Scaffolds can be defined as tools that help students meaningfully participate in and gain skill at tasks that are beyond their unassisted abilities. However, the term scaffold is often used a theoretically, resulting in poor understanding of how and why students use computer-based scaffolds. In this paper, we reconnect the term scaffold to the socio-cultural theory that under girds it and use that theory to explain how students use computer-based scaffolds. In particular, we examine the idea that affordances and motives drive student use of scaffolds. This framework has important implications for instructional design and scaffold research.