The collaborative visualization project
Communications of the ACM - Special issue on technology in K–12 education
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In recent years, efforts to create learning environments that promote active engagement with science has led to a revival of interest in project-based pedagogy. The Learning Through Collaborative Visualization (CoVis) project based at Northwestern University brings this interest to high schools. CoVis includes a set of ideas and networked computer tools assembled by a group of university-based researchers, with the aid of high school teachers, and the support and funding of the National Science Foundation [Pea, 1993]. History has shown, however, that the creation of technologies and the ideas of academic researchers are inadequate to determine what happens in classrooms. Ultimately, teachers accomplish activity with their students daily in classrooms. Some critics might say that teachers do not accept ideas from the outside simply because they are stubborn or closedminded, but research has shown that teachers have good reasons for transforming outside ideas for their own classrooms. Above all, they are in a better position to understand the particular contexts in which they and their students are trying to work, and the individual personalities and needs of the students themselves.