In the Virtual School two varieties of notebooks can be created, personal or group notebooks. Group notebooks can be accessed by all members of a group. Anyone can add or delete sections of the notebook, but only one user at a time can edit a notebook's contents at a time. When one member of a group wishes to edit a particular notebook, he/she clicks on the lock bar at the bottom of the notebook. The notebook then shows as being locked by that user to all other notebook users until the current user clicks the status bar to unlock the notebook. An example of a locked group notebook is shown below.
The virtual school also allows email, chat sessions and video conferencing (although video conferencing was not available during some of the time the activity we analyzed occured). These tools are designed to allow group members to collaborate on what will go into their group's notebook, rather than simply editing and re-editing the notebook to see what works and what doesn't work.
>From this screen we can tell that Spencer is logged in because his name is highlighted. We can also see the names of the other members of his group and from the fact that their names are darkened we can tell that he is the only one who is logged in right now. A list of Spencer's notebooks can also be found. We can see that he has no personal notebooks and only one group notebook entitled test2. The noticeboard reflects no activity. This is the case because Spencer has just logged in. We can also see that he can easily click on one of the top buttons to open a chat session or to check his email. The video conference button is inactive since it was not available to us while testing.
The activity that we analyzed was basically an exercise in learning how to apply the scientific method. Groups were made up of students from both the middle school and the high school. Each group was given a notebook made up by the teacher/administrator with specific questions to answer already in the notebook.
The notebook page given them read as follows:
As you begin your project, start by doing and answering these things. It's important that you agree on your answers. Type your answers in the spaces between the questions below.
1. Using the EDIT menu, change the name of this notebook to something more relavent to your topic.
2. What is your research question or purpose?
3. What is your hypothesis?
4. What is your independent variable?
5. What is your dependent variable?
6. What is your control?
7. What variables will remain constant?
8. What materials will you need?
9. Outline your methods or procedures for carrying out your experiment.
10. How will you record your data? Describe your table.
Each group decided on an experiment to run and then collaborated on how to perform the experiment and describe it in the notebook. There were 5 different groups. A list of the groups and the experiments they performed follows:
Skittles: Can the color of a skittles candy be determined merely by tasting it?
Thirst: How thirsty are people depending on whether or not they have exercised?
Generic: Can people tell the difference between generic and name brand products based on taste?
Hot Wheels: How far will different Hot Wheels travel down a ramp?
Greasy: What kinds of chips are the most greasy?
We analyzed each group's activity log in order to determine the effectiveness of the virtual school software both as a learning tool and as a collaboration method. We used this particular activity to analyze the virtual school from an active user perspective, as well as to determine how effective the virtual school was in encouraging interaction. We also wanted to find problems or difficulties which seemed to occur throughout the different groups either with the software specifically, or in the general group dynamics. With these goals in mind, we searched through the logs to find problems the kids seemed to have either with the equipment or with interaction. The problems we identified are reflected in our scenario and claims analysis.
While we were learning the virtual school software we also alighted on some administrative difficulties. In being active users and creating a group notebook, we had a great deal of success. However, our efforts to delete this notebook were not as easily satisfied. Our inability to delete a group notebook brought up questions of who should be allowed to delete notebooks belonging to a group, and should group members be allowed to delete the contents of a notebook, and not be allowed to delete the entire notebook. These administrative difficulties and others are also further analyzed in our scenario and claims analysis.