The Internet-based Shared Environment for Expeditions
James M. Laffey, Minjuan Wang, Tom Tupper, Paul Wangemann · Psychology Press eBooks · 2013
The Internet-based Shared Environment for Expeditions (iExpeditions) project is both an effort to develop and implement an innovative collaborative learning environment and a design experiment to build new knowledge about internet-based learning systems. IExpeditions has been designed for youth taking on and learning from authentic projects, and is a partnership of the Center for Technology Innovation in Education (CTIE), University of Missouri, Columbia, and Motorola, Inc. and includes collaboration with educators at Brigham Young University. An expedition is a metaphor for participant&s;s involvement in a team problem-solving activity. iExpeditions is an internet-based extension of a successful face to face program offered for a number of years by Motorola University for children of Motorola employees. In the face to face experiences the youth spend a week with other youth and mentors and take on an authentic problem of Motorola. Examples of the type of problems the youth have taken on include how best to sell pagers in China or how to implement a communication system in the Olympic village. These camp-like experiences have been highly effective in engaging the youth in problem solving experiences. Can this high level of engagement and productivity be achieved and sustained through an internet-based system? What design of system features and implementation strategies will best promote teamwork and problem solving activity? Moving to an Internet-based system brings many challenges, including technical requirements of the home computing environments, training to use the system, loss of face to face interpersonal contact, and the loss of a focussed time period. The possibility of an internet-based system, however, offers substantial advantages including the potential of expeditions at anytime during the year (not just summer camp), inclusion of youth who do not live close to the camp sites, and engagement of youth from around the world in collaborative teams.