{"id":8993,"date":"2014-06-04T08:00:26","date_gmt":"2014-06-04T12:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.smith.edu\/news\/?page_id=8993"},"modified":"2014-06-23T09:52:12","modified_gmt":"2014-06-23T13:52:12","slug":"campus-school-sixth-graders-testing-software","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.smith.edu\/news-stories\/campus-school-sixth-graders-testing-software\/","title":{"rendered":"Campus School Sixth-Graders Test New Engineering Software"},"content":{"rendered":"

As any graduate can attest, the Smith College Campus School has a long history of making learning fun. On a recent Friday morning, students in Mary Ann Dassatti\u2019s sixth-grade information technology class are discovering that for themselves. They are testing the beta version of a new website, and the room is soon focused and alive with ideas and questions:<\/p>\n

\u201cRobots can analyze all the results for every single move in like two seconds!\u201d \u2026 \u201dThis robot is a genius!\u201d … \u201dThis is so weird!\u201d … \u201cWait, there\u2019s a robots\u2019 rights movement?\u201d<\/p>\n

Introducing sixth-graders to complex engineering concepts\u2014and getting them to like it\u2014may seem like the stuff of fairy tales. But with the help of \u201cThrough My Window,\u201d a multimedia engineering education website developed by faculty at Smith and Springfield Technical Community colleges and funded by the National Science Foundation, it\u2019s actually becoming a reality.<\/p>\n

\u201cEngineers literally design our world,\u201d says Glenn Ellis, a professor of engineering at Smith and a member of the \u201cThrough My Window\u201d team. \u201cBut potential engineers are often turned off to engineering at an early age. \u2026 Our hope is to create a learning environment that engages all children and helps them to see themselves as the engineers who will be designing the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

The site immerses learners in stories featuring culturally diverse characters with whom they interact in novels, graphic novels, and \u201conline learning journeys.\u201d According to sixth-grader Skylar Nieman, the results are compelling.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t start by thinking about the machines,\u201d she says. \u201cYou start by thinking about the story. It makes it easier to think about because it\u2019s more interesting. You have a story, not just the facts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"rudnitskyclassroom\"
Professor Al Rudnitsky explains engineering software to Campus School sixth-graders.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bringing the story to life has been a collaborative effort of a team that includes Ellis, Professor of Education Alan Rudnitsky, faculty members from Springfield Technical Community College, illustrator Evanleigh Davis, author Sonia Ellis, a group of Smith students, and a team of software developers. This team has joined forces with students at the Smith Campus School to test and evaluate the software; after working with the software, students and researchers meet to discuss their experiences and share ideas.<\/p>\n

Lauren Ann Weston \u201815 is one of the \u00a0Smith students working with the project. For Weston, helping to develop \u201cThrough My Window\u201d has offered a range of rewards.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a junior at Smith,\u201d she says, \u201cI am playing a role on the \u201cThrough My Window\u201d team that is providing me with leadership skills, independent motivation, new knowledge about previously unknown topics, technological skills, and real-world collaborative skills where the end result of my hard work is not a grade, but rather a tool that will affect people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

The software opens by introducing students to an online graphic novel that gradually becomes more and more interactive. As users try to figure out how to help the characters in their quest, they are challenged to grapple with questions about how the mind works, and the possibilities and limits of artificial intelligence: What do you need to understand to be able to play ping pong? To play chess? To respond appropriately to someone else\u2019s emotions?<\/p>\n

Head of School Samuel Intrator is especially interested in the way the project brings grammar school students and researchers together in an unlikely but highly effective team.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a perfect example of how faculty can forward their research by using the minds of sixth-graders to figure out how to frame, write, and test this software,\u201d says Intrator, who is also a Smith professor of education and child study. \u201cExperts are rolling through this school with their best thinking, and kids just bump into it in so many ways. From the perspective of both the technological development and the educational philosophy, this is incredibly valuable.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the end of the software testing session on this recent Friday, Dassatti asks students to log off and prepare to move to their next class. One student sends up a cry of mock protest: \u201cNooooo! Why, Ms. Dassatti, why?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause I\u2019m so terribly mean,\u201d comes the firm but friendly response. \u201cRemember, you can log in at home.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As any graduate can attest, the Smith College Campus School has a long history of making learning fun. On a recent Friday morning, students in Mary Ann Dassatti\u2019s sixth-grade information technology class are discovering that for themselves. They are testing the beta version of a new website, and the room is soon focused and alive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-8993","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smith.edu\/news-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smith.edu\/news-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smith.edu\/news-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smith.edu\/news-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smith.edu\/news-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8993"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.smith.edu\/news-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9203,"href":"https:\/\/www.smith.edu\/news-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8993\/revisions\/9203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smith.edu\/news-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}