The Inquiry Page Collaboratory
Jenny Robins (GSLIS)

Introduction

I'd like to talk about Inquiry Page collaboratory. We’ve had quite in opportunity today to share ideas about Inquiry learning, but before we go, I'd like to take a few minutes to talk what we mean when we say the Inquiry Page is a collaboratory. First I'm going to describe what collaboratory is. Then, I'm going to talk about the types of things members of a collaboratory can do. Finally I’ll talk about the immediate and future benefits of belonging to collaboratory.

Description of a collaboratory

A collaboratory is an environment where people can share resources and information. Historically, the problem with this kind of sharing was that generally only a few copies of any given resource were available. Today with the Internet, we can make unlimited copies of digital resources. Many of the resources we use and find valuable for Inquiry learning are those we create ourselves, and those that others allow to be freely distributed. A collaboratory is a way to share those resources. A collaboratory generally serves specific community of interest. For example, the Inquiry Page collaboratory serves instructors who are interested in Inquiry learning.

Figure 1:Turtle drawings – A collaboratory is a community not a set of technologies

I brought along my turtle drawings. I use them to demonstrate that a collaboratory is not simply a set of technologies like chatrooms, Webboards and HTML pages. A collaboratory is a living, breathing community of people with a common interest who come together using several types of media. This shell of a tools and technologies, etc.are just a way a community communicates and shares its resources. One medium of coming together is this workshop, where those of us who are interested in Inquiry learning meet face-to-face to share our stories. Technology can provide other ways for us to come together. There was a time when computers we used only to perform computations. Later, computers were used to process data. Increasingly, computers have become a means of communication. While nothing can beat the richness of the exchanges we had today, meeting face-to-face, coming together through the collaboratory tools can provide a way for us to meet without leaving our classrooms, homes or offices. These tools also enable us to meet asynchronously, which means we can talk to each other without having to find a time that will be convenient for everybody involved in the discussion. There’s an additional advantage, in that everybody's voice can be heard. We can all talk at once using collaborative technologies. There is also the advantage the major advantage that, because the discussion takes place in textual form, a written record remains and that record can be shared. Internet discussions are self-documenting.

At this workshop, many of us have had in opportunity to share our experiences with Inquiry learning. The Inquiry Page collaboratory is a place to continue that sharing. The Inquiry unit is another way to share. The form that you saw earlier today is a semantic tool for telling our stories. The form presents all of the semantic categories we've come up with so far when we've tried to describe our experiences and with Inquiry. This list of categories in the unit form is not exhaustive, it's just a starting point. Right now we have 26 categories, but we have the ability to add hundreds more if they're useful. Can you imagine what the form would look like then? That leads to problems about how to make units easy to use and understand, which brings me to the second point I want to talk about, which is the types of things that Inquiry Page collaboratory members can do.

Types of things members of a collaboratory can do

We need help with coming up with new, more descriptive categories to describe the process of Inquiry. We also need help to design a way to present those categories without tcreating an even lengthier HTML form. We've already had some good suggestions from members of the community. For example, one member suggested to we use only the five broad categories of ask, investigate, create, discuss, and reflect. Another member suggested we create a tools so that instructors could design their own form using labeled boxes they select from the toolbox. Another method might be to find ways to create a unit without filling in a form. The labels on the text boxes really represent questions we are asking learners, such as; "What is the background of this investigation? "Did you find any Web resources useful?" Who did you talk to during this Inquiry? "The questions and answers could be gathered over time through email exchanges between teachers and students (I bet some of you are using email with your students already.) For that matter, the same information could be gathered by pen and pencil – that’s still inquiry learning. It just makes it harder, but not impossible, to get the unit into the collaboratory. I suspect that the some us here today will have other ideas that can help solve the problem of telling our stories of learning in a way that is unique and still has structural consistency.

This is an important point, because when we tell our stories individually, we provide anecdotes. But when we tell our stories collectively, patterns emerge and through the patterns, our stories become evidence, and evidence can be used to produce a systematic change. The structural consistency of units plays a major role here, which I’ll talk about again in a few minutes. First I'd like to talk about another thing collaboratory members can do, which is to set up a member profile that can be shared with others in the community, and can be used to help the collaboratory find resources and information that's customized to your needs.

You might be familiar with member profiles used in other places on the Internet. Our philosophy at the Inquiry Page is a little different from most dot.coms, though. We believe that your profile belongs to you and should be used only in ways that you indicate. All the information that the Inquiry Page collaboratory has about members, they can see, they can edit, and they can delete. In fact, deleting an entire profile is the way to leave the collaboratory and re-joining the collaboratory is a simple as filling out another profile. By the way, our profile form is nowhere near as long as the unit form. Not yet anyway. A copy of the profile form is in the forms section of the white binders.

Benefits of belonging to collaboratory

Profiles

The main purpose of the member profile is to tell the system more about you so that communication can be customized to member needs. For example, the collaboratory can let you know when a unit you might be interested in has been contributed. Also, one of the required fields of a member profile is the zip code which we can used to introduce you to others in your geographic area who are working on similar projects or who have similar interests in order to give you a chance to meet by telephone or face-to-face. We can tell you what events related Inquiry learning are occurring near you. And through the member profiles, our partners can find out who’s interested in their projects and let them know about new developments. But that's not all, the profiles can be used as a way to control the distribution of the units you create. For example, if you’re working on a unit with a group of people, but you feel that what you are doing is still in the experimental stage, the unit could be shared among members of your group, but not members of the community at large. One of the things to be implemented will be a history that attach to member profiles. The history will include a list of the units you've created, and it will show search terms you've used to find resources. Eventually it will be able to provide a list of units that you've book-marked by assigning your own keywords to them. Your profiles are also way for you to share information about yourself with others in this community. I'm sure, we’ll find even more uses for profiles in the future. But now I'd like to talk about some of the other benefits of the Inquiry Page units.

Inquiry Units

Returning to the Inquiry units, I want to point out that, like the member profiles, units remain the property of the person who creates them. Members are always free to delete them. Also, Inquiry Units can be used for two main purposes (but I suspect that some of you will come up with more). One purpose is for teachers to keep a record of the process and product of their own learning. In this way, the unit can be used like an inquiry lesson plan that can be repeatedly edited and can be shared with other teachers over the Internet. Inquiry units can also be used to direct student learning. Using units as a classroom management tool, means using them to direct students in developing their own curriculum under your guidance. Then the unit becomes a record of the process and product of their learning. The unit will also give you a visible means of tracking their Inquiry, either individually or in student groups. The teacher coaches and guides student through subject areas, but the student is involved in decisions about things like what background material is appropriate, or what resources to use to investigate a problem, and who to talk to, etc

Actually, this dual purpose of Inquiry units took us developers by surprise. It took teachers to point out to us that units could be used directly by students involved in Inquiry learning. When this happens, the teacher becomes the master learner imparting not only knowledge about a discipline area, but knowledge about the process of learning. As this dual purpose suggests, Inquiry actually blurs the distinction between the instructor and the learner, bringing teachers and students together in the Inquiry community.

There's more benefits to using Inquiry Units. When you create a unit, you can use it as a way to show what students in your classroom are doing. Because of privacy restrictions, you might not be able to put student units on a public Web site, but they will be available for viewing in classrooms across the country, and school administrators will be able to view them over district networks. Also, individual units can be emailed to parents to show the progress of their child. In the future, school districts could use Inquiry units in student portfolios that would demonstrate a student's progress over time and also help teachers learn more about the interests and abilities of new students.

Due to the power of a collective, even more things might be possible if this Inquiry collaboratory grows. The semantic structure of the unit facilitates statistical processes that can be used to analyze text. For example, the collaboratory could aid teachers when they work with students by suggestions. For example, a teacher might receive a message that says "Larry is studying Egyptians, there's. another sixth grader at a Jefferson middle school who is interested in Egyptians." Or " Shannon will meet the requirements of Illinois learning standards 16.A.1a through 16.A.5b in World History if she discusses her findings with the class. "Or "Your student, Deb could contact, Bob Peterson a scientist at NASA who is involved in the Mars expedition. "These are the types of things teachers and school librarians do now. The Inquiry unit’s structure makes it possible to multiply the benefits of this work. The suggestions above are examples of ways the collaboratory could follows the paths of earlier learners and harvest useful information for students in the future.

And, as I mentioned before, where a single story about classroom Inquiry is an anecdote, a collection of stories can be a body of evidence about what works in the classroom. The collaboratory is a way for teachers to speak with one voice. Now, you might expect me to say something like "All it takes is for you to join us and do… whatever..."But I'm not going to say that, because the last thing teachers need is another thing to do. Instead, at the Inquiry Page we’re saying "Make us bring this technology to you. "By that, I mean help us find tools that make your job easier today. We want to make a tool that makes less work for you, not more, a tool that is "embedded in practice", meaning you use it, because it's handy and it does the job easily and efficiently. If the Inquiry Page profiles and units become embedded in the everyday practice of inquiry teaching and learning, the collaboratory will create itself as a byproduct of your daily activities. That's the way it should be.

Conclusion

So that's all I have to say about what a collaboratory is, what members need to do, and about its benefits, now and in the future. Back to the turtle drawings... We are this Inquiry community. We’ve come together. Let’s see what we can build.