DOCUMENT RESUME

ED 319 393 IR 014 415

AUTHOR Brunner, CorneliaTITLE Designing INQUIRE. Technical Report No. 50.TNSTTTUTTON Bank Street Coll. of Education, New York, NY. Center

for Children and Technology.PUB DATE Feb 90NOTE 17p.

PUB TYPE Reports - Descriptive (141)

EDRS PRICE mFo1 /PC01 Plus Postage.DESCRIPTORS *Cognitive Processes; *Computer Assisted Instruction;

*Coursewale; Elementary Education; Hypermedia;*Inquiry; *Instructional Design

IDENTIFIERS Apple Macintosh; *HyperCard

ABSTRACT

This report discusses the design of the Macintoshversion cf INQUIRE, a software package developef:i to support theprocesses and activities of inquiry learning and teaching. It isnoted that the design challenge was to encourage students to considerinformation from a variety of perspectives, to make and articulateconceptual connections between the ideas and facts they encounter, toenable them to play with information while learning to evaluate itsvalidity and relevance, and to help them reflect about their ownquestions and learn something about the assumptions underlying theirideas and opinions. Included in the report are descriptions of thecentral metaphor guiding the design process; the software's basicstructure; navigation and housekeeping tools; and procedures forresearching students' own questions, writing text, drawing, recordingnumerical information, noting the sources of information, linkingINQUIRE to a videodisk, analyzing information, and tracking studentprogress through the software. (GL)

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Designing I DIRE

Cornelia Brunner

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Aklar CENTER FOR CHILDREN 4

TechnicalReportSeries

Technical Report No. 50

Designing INQUIRE

Cornelia Brunner

February 1990

3

\ ,gunner.

The Purpose of INQUIRE

INQUIRE was designed to help children investigateand to help teachers guide them. Its main purpose isto support the processes and activities of inquirylearning and teaching; that is, to facilitate children'sactive construction and transformation of understand-ing, and to foster the development of their awarenessof what knowledge is. Using the tools and activitiesprovided in the program, children can investigateinformation sources systematically. Theprogram helpsthem by making it easier to identify and keep track oftheir purpose, to take notes and organize them inuseful ways, and to think about and interpret the in-formation. The program neither coaches nor tutors;rather, it provides procedural support for carryingout the complex, recursive processes of inquiry.

The original design goals for INQUIRE were tocreate tools that help students to: (1) juxtapose theircurrent understanding of an issue or phenomenonwith new information; (2) orient investigation andfocus comprehension; (3) provide support formanag-ing all parts of the information-gathering and inter-pretation task; (4) divide complex questions intocomponent parts or subquestions; (5) review, evalu-ate, and revise questions and understanding through-out the inquiry; (6) supply procedures for queryingand transforming new information as students recordand work with it; (7) identify and build relationsthrough flexible categorizing (since relations changeas one learns more), and linking items with each otherin ways that can be easily examined and changed; (8)query and interpret multiple (including both qualita-tive and quantitative) representations; (9) composetop-level ideas in complex problem solving as well as

in generating hypotheses and alternatives; and (10)consider consequences of solutions, alternatives, andconstraints in relation to information and evidence.

The design challenge for INQUIRE, then, was tofind ways to encourac, students to consider informa-tion from a variety of perspectives, to make andarticulate conceptual connections between the ideasand facts they encounter, to enable them to play withinformation while learning to evaluate its validity andrelevance, and to help them reflect about their ownquestions and learn something about the assumptionsunderlying their ideas and opinions.

INQUIRE presently exists in two versions. Theoriginal version was written for MS-DOS machines. AMacintoshTM version, written in HyperTalkrm, wascreated specifically for research purposes. The Hyper-Care' environment permits the design of a graphicinterface and instant, on-the-spot revision. Designfeatures can thus be added, altered, or customizedduring usage and testing in schools. This report dis-cusses the design of the Macintosh version of IN-QUIRE.

The Design of INQUIRE

INQUIRE is designed like an adventure game. It isintended to be familiar to kids who play computergames. There are tools, commands, inventories, maps,and decisions to be made and a maze to be navi-gatedeverything but the story. The story is con-structed interactively by the child and the contentmaterial. INQUIRE never contains the story. At most,it holds documentation for a proposal or evidence foran argument. It is not a report writer (since the goal ofan inquiry is understanding, not a report) but it can be

4 1

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used as a report composition tool.

The Central MetaphorThe opening animation of INQUIRE is intended as anallusion to "Star Trek" (Figure 1). It i3 meant to suggestdiscovery, adventure, exploration. Star Trek, in filmand on television, is primarily a story about a journeyof exploration. In keeping with the Bank Street per-spective on education, we consider guided explora-tion the central process of inquiry. As creators ofeducational technology, we also wanted to demystifycomputers, to portray them as tools for investigationrather than as carriers of knowledge.

Figure 1

In Star Trek, the computer is an almost limitlesssource of fascinating and useful information aboutdistant times and places. It can also analyze the chem-istry of planets, diagnose disease, and run the ship,but it never challenges the crew's power to interpretthe information it furnishes or the commander's powerto make decisions. When attached to rich informationbases, INQUIRE can function like a modest version ofthe Star Trek computer. It can help analyze informa-tion and facilitate learning. The screen becomes awindow into the universe, in which people, objects,and planets can be brought into close focus.

The futuristic Star Trek computer knows aboutevery aspect of life on innumerable planets through-out recorded history. It can put the relevai informa-tion together Gnd analyze it to come up with answersto complex questions. Children accept computers asmagical and mysterious creatures.They know as littleabout ho ,v computers come up with answers as theydo about how scientists arrive at conclusions. In

INQUIRE, the computer facilitates but does none ofthe thinking, none of the coming up with answers. Itmerely provides a set of analytic schemes that canhelp solve conceptual problems. Whether the databanks from which ans' ers are constructed are acces-sible through the computer screen or through anothermedium, the students have to designate informationas relevant, collect it in sets of notes, and analyze it inthe light of their own questions about the topic. Theanswers, for better or worse, are the children's own.

The Basic Structure of INQUIREINQUIRE consists of three modules (Figure 2), whichcan be used independently or in any relation to eachother. The activities provided in the Brainstormer areintended as a kind of fuel. Either at the beginning of aninquiry or at any point during it when there is a needfor new strategies or new approaches, these brain-storming activities might help t' point investigatorsin new directions. The tools available in the Note-Taker are designed to assist in recording and organiz-ing different kinds of information. The activities in theAnalyzer are intended to facilitate a different kind ofstepping away from the data. They are meant to helpchildren get an overview, to construct a bigger picturein order to gain better understanding. These activitiescan be used to summarize or to generate new ideas, todiagnose or to revise, to evaluate or to conclude.

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Figure 2

All three sets of tools and activities can be used ina variety of ways and for a range of purposes. Creativeteachers can find interesting uses, and students mayfind that some activities suit their style of thinkingbetter than others. Formative research about how they

5

are being used may add templates for activities thatare unanticipated in this design and alter the interfaceso that bettor use can be made of them. BecauseINQUIRE was designed for science inquiry, the activi-ties of scientists aremodeled in it. Uses of the programin social studies, art, or literature might require addi-tional or different thinking tools.

Basic Navigation and Housekeeping ToolsThe menu bar across the top of the screen consists ofgraphic buttons that either produce direct action orpop-up hierarchical menus (Figure 3). Clicking in amenu button produces a distinct sound effect to signal.the user to wait to release the mouse until the pop-upmenu appears.

The Travel menus are identical throughout IN-QUIRE. The left and right arrows take the user to theprevious or next card within tr 2 same activity. Theright-angled arrow takes the user back to the last cards/he came from, regardless of the activity. The Helicopter menu makes travel among all the parts of theprogram possible. The Text menu ("A") permits chang-ing the sizeof the font from 9 to 14 points. Each changeis ac'ompanied by a distinct sound effect.

The Apple and Copymenus are designed to fulfillthe same function whenever they appear, but thespecific menu items they contain may differ depend-ing on the activity (Figure 4).

The Copy menu allows the user to copy and pastetext within and across cards and activities.The Collectitem facilitates collecting text segments from multiplecards before pasting them all into an Evidence field inthe Analyzer. (See the description of the Evidence

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activity below.).The Apple menu is designed to take care of "house-

keeping" chores in each activity, analogous to the Fileand Edit menus in the standard Macintosh interface.In the Brainstorming activities, the only tasks neededare to create new cards, delete unwanted ones, andturn the Video Controller on or off. There isno Printfunction provided, primarily because we want tostress that Brainstorming is an activity in whicl theoutcomes are far less tangible than the process. Thereis no technical obstacle to providing a Print functionthat allows the user to print out a list of all questionswith or without their tentative answers. (See the de-scription of the Questions activity below) Formativeresearch will determine whether that would be auseful addition to the program.

In the Note-Taker, the Apple menu includes anumber of additional featLres. The user can get a new,empty card (New Card) or a new card in which thebibliographical information from the previous card isalreadyentered (Same Source). Theuser can also enterthat bibliographical information into special SourceCards (Enter Source). (See the description off "Source"cards below.) There is also a feature that allows theuser to find specific words or phrases in any card ofthe program (Find Word), to print any number orcombination of cards (Print), to use the Macintosh DAcalculator (Calculator), or to see the student's ownconceptual guide through the inquiry (Guide). (Seethe description of the Summary activity below.)

In the Analyzer, the Apple menu differs in eachactivity. It always contains the tools to perform theactivity itself.

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Each Onaiyzer activityhas 0 different'nousekeeping' menu.

Figure 4

The Help feature in INQUIPE is not in its finalform (Figure 5). Since the program 'self is beingrevised all the time, the Help screens are undergoingconstant -evision. In the present version, Help con-sists of separate text fields for each menu in eachscreen. When users click in the H ;lp button ("?"), thatbutton is highlighted and, for as long as the highlightis on, clicking in each of the other menu buttonsproCuces a text field explaining each menu item ratherthan the pop-up menu itself. We need more formativeresearch al..)ut the difficulties students and teachersencounter in trying to use the program. We plan toenlist students who use 'he program as co-designersof the Help section.

4 VT'd d i . F 1 la il.t1 I I *TRAVEL: ..5Hold down the mouse button until a menu appears.

This menu allows you to go to any activity in INQUIRE,

f.flap: go to the opening screen Of INQUIRE. By clicking in any of ire icons. g

you can go to that acitvIty or module. The -Mr Is also where you Quit .0

INQUIRE, customize the screens, orupdete you status. iBrainstormen move tr.. rsor to the right and select one of these. g

Quastions:go directly to le last 'Questions' card In theBRAINSTORMER.

Know4tiottgo directly to the lest 'Know/Need' Card In theBRAINSfoRKR.Summery go directly to the 'Summery' card in the BRAINSTORMER.Plan: go directly to the last 'Plan' card in thO BRAINSTORMER.

Note-Takenmove the cursor to the right end select one of these;Writgo directly to the last 'Writing' card in the NOTE-TAKER,

CustomizingThere are a number of housekeeping tools built intoINQUIRE to make life easier for teachers and stu-dents. There is a special screen for customizing themenus available in the Note-Taker (Figure 6).

Customizing the ilote-joker

;Vick in en icon to disable that menu in 11;d1 kind of cord.Click in again to bring bock the full menu m the cords.

Figure 6

Teachers (or students) can disable or enablemenussimply by clicking on it in this screen. If all menushave been disabled, there will still be a sufficientnumber of options available to make INQUIRE work-able and navigable. But, especially in the beginning,too m,.ny options might make the program seemmore complicated and harder to master than it needsto be. This feature allows for a gradual introduction ofoptions.

Status CardsThe Status screen allows students to keep track oftheir work (Figure 7). We included this feature be-cause we believe that self-assessment is an importantskill, and in this activity students are invited to assesshow much of their own projected inquiry they haveaccomplished, rather than how well they are doing orhow much effort they have expended. As with mostother parts of the program, a creative teacher can usethis activity to start interesting discussions about howone estimates progress, what criteria might be rele-vant, and how estimations change over time as stu-dents learn more and realize that finding the answersto their own questions is both more complex andsimpler than expected.

Students enter the date by clicking in the datefields below the three slide rs. They estim ate the amountof work they have done in any module by dragging avertical sliding bar up from "0 %not yet startedto100 %finished." The part names can be changed toreflect any part of the work. Since there can be anynumber of Status cards, the number of parts of aninquiry that can be evaluated in this nonthreateningway is unlimited. Students who are working in agroup can also keep separate track of their status on

individual cards.

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How far along are you?

Part Name Part Name

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IL minderINQUIRE is designed to prevent leaving the programwithout going through a "next step" planning proc-ess. This is an example of the kinds of classroommanagement issues we try to address in designing theprogram. The bell invariably rings when students areright in the middle of some process. It might be manydays before they come back to thc.program. They arelikely to forget what they had started and to lose trackof what they were planning to do next. On leavingINQUIRE, a field asking 'What were you planning todo next?" appears. One can leave the program with-out writing anything in this field, but one has to dc itdeliberately by clicking in an "OK" button. This fea-ture is likely to encourage jotting down at least a keyword or two, however. On restarting INQUIRE, theopening screen will contain the reminder field headedby the words "What you were planning to do next... i"

The BrainstormerIdeally, students will use INQUIRE to research theirown questions. This may be done in the context ofindependent projects or as part of some topic areadefined by the teacher or the curriculum. Knowinghow to phrase fruitful questionshow to define theproblem in such a way that answerable questions canbe askedis a major aspect of inquiry learning.INQUIRE thus containsa Questions activity designedto help stuaents arrive at a set of questions that canguide their inquiry.

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Question rardsThis activity consists of an unlimited number of ques-tion boxes into which students can write any questionthat occurs to them (Figure 8). Thereare eight questionboxes per screen. This limitation can be used to organ-ize the question boxes into sets. Questions written intoboxes in no particular order can /--e cut and pasted intonew question screens, now containing related sets ofquestions, such as a main question and up to sevensubquestions. Question sets can thus become the firstorganizing principle for the inquiry.

Figure

Students are invited to try to answer their ownquestions (clicking in the lit,ht bu'b icon I firings up ahidden answer field) This is intended to encouragethem to Leflect on their questions and their currentideas. They are invited to determine whether theirquestions can be answered by thinking about what apossible answer might be. Formed, e research hasdemonstrated that children find this difficult, notbecause of a lick of interest in imagining possibleanswers, but because they are used to having to comeup with what the teacher considers the "right an-swer." We decided on two design features to facilitatethis reflective process for tt.em: The answers can behidden behind the questions so that nobody lookingover a student's shoulder can evaluate or comment onthe possible answer without the student's permission;the children can "hedge their bets" about the answerby ra ti ng their degree of certainty about theiranswer(s).

The rating scale is a sliding bar below each ques-tion box, indicating how sure the student is of the

answer on a scale from 0 to 10. It invites additionalreflection about the process of arriving at answers.Students can become increasingly uncertain as theygather information, for instance, while learning some-thing about what makes for adequate criteria forevaluating the validity of a- answer. They can alsobecome increasingly certain as they gather evidencetc support what was originally only a hunch. A goodteacher can use these activities to teach about thinkingas well as about subject matter

Know/Not CardsStarting from what students know can promote con-fidence by demunstrating that they already knowquite a lot. It also puts unanswered questions into ameaningful context, thereby making them less over-whelming.

The Know /Not activity invites students to writedc,n what they know and to answer three questionsabout it: (1) How certain am I of this information oridea? (2) What else do I need tc know about it? (3) Howimportant is thP. missing information to my goal? Theknown "clue" and the yet-to-be-discovered one arewritten side by side, underlining the implication thatthere is something else still to be discovered abouteverything known, and that the basis for every ques-tinn is some idea or piece of knowledge (Figui e 9).

SILT° 9 016.1 Roy Important is it?

Figure 9

There is room for quite a lot of information in the"I know" or "I don't know" fields. There are manyways in which these parallel fields can be used. Evi-dence can be added to a "known" fact and puzzlingfindings can be added to the "unknown" information.A single card can end up being a record of the inves-

tigation of a single clue, with all the inferences drawnand related leads added over time. Keeping track ofthe inquiry itself by periodic assessments of this kindcan help teachers diagnose students' progress and canhelp students become more aware of their os% n learn-ing and thinking processes.

The sliding bar on thebottom of each field permitsa 100 point rating (rather than a ten point rating, as inthe Questions activity). The rationale for this is thatdeciding how sure one is of known information mightrequire a more sensitive measure than hedOng one'sbet on a hunch about a possible answer to an earlyquestion. This might well turn out to be an unneces-sary distinction. We deciri,_ci to keep the rating scalesdifferent, however, to underline the fact that differentkinds of evaluations are being asked for in each ofthese activities. If the main purpose of the rating scalein the Questions activity is to allow students to evenconsider what a possible answer might look like, thepoint of the scale in the Know/Not activity is to thinkseriously about the kind of evidence on which theknown fact is based and to make considered decisionsabout priorities in pursuing unknowns.

Summary CardAs part of the cyclical revision process, each impor-tant (".iestion or statement of needed information canbe imported to a scrapbook. Novice investigatorsand, occasionally, experts have difficulty movingback and forth between the specifics of the informa-tion they are gathering and an overview of the mainconcepts and directions of their inquiry. They need aguide to remember wily they are taking certain ap-proaches, how specific facts might be relevant, andwhat questions they are trying to answer. In IN-QUIRE, the Brainstormer activities can be used todevelop such a guide, based on the students' own con-cerns and assumptions.

Both the Questions and the Know/Not activitieshave a button that allows the student to "grab" textand store it in the Scrapbook field of the Summaryscreen (Figure 10). The Scrapbook is a scrolling fieldand can hold a great deal of text, whereas the Jum-mary field can only hold a limited amount of text. Inthis activity, students are invited to go through all thequestions or ideas they considered important enoughto include in the Scrapbook and weed them out fur-ther. The most important ones can be listed in theSummary field. Because tLe Summary ', available in

9

every part of INQUIRE, students can use this field todevelop an over iew for themselvesa kind of guideto what's important, what they are really afteragainst which they can periodically measure theirinformation-gaii tering processes.

multiple planning cards, the number of separate listsis unlimited. The list fields can take up a quarter of thescreen or extend over the entire screen. Each field alsohas a place to check off items, either because they arefinished or because they are particularly important.

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Figure 10

Planning CardsThere is one other tool available in the Brainstormerthe Planner (Figure 11). Students can write down asimple plan of action for gathering information anddividing the work. The Planner is intended to serve asa kind of bridge between brainstorming and gather-ing data. The process of figuring out how to organizethe search for informationfrom understandinghowa library works or how to establish contacts withexpertsprobably needs a lot more support thanINQUIRE is presently providing. More research intowhat strategieshelp students think productively aboutthe logistical, administrative, and organizational tasksinvolved in starting and completing an inquiry isneeded. Refining this activity may be particularlyimportant since genuine group work, in which stu-dents take different roles and assign different tasks tothemselves, seems to be one of the major benefits ofINQUIRE in the classroom. The computerserves as anorganizer, a logistics manager, leaving the teachermore time for substantive discussion with groups ofstudents.

At present, the activity consists of four separatefields that invite the user to keep track of variousaspects of the inquiry. The rubrics provided in theprogram are People, Places, Publications and Dates.These names can be altered by the user, however, toreflect any aspect of the iiiquiry. Since there can be

Figure 11

Clicking in the large Project Plan button on thebottom of the screen brings up a fifth field in which thestudents can plan their inquiry strategy. It is anotherlist field, in which they can combine or prioritize theinformation contained in the other lists.

One of the items in the Apple menu of this activityallows the user to find a particular word or date in aspecific field without having to open up the field andscroll through all the entries.

The Note-TakerThe main module of INQUIRr is the Note-Taker. Itconsists of four kinds of note cards to keep track ofdifferent kinds of information. There are cards forwriting text, cards for drawing, cards for recordingnumerical information, and cards for noting the sourcesof the information.

Writing CardsThe Writing card consists of three separate fields(Figure 12). The Title field can be used in a number ofways, from identifying the content of the card tocreating a system of subcategories. INQUIRE comeswith all thesearching and sorting capabilities of Hyper-Card. The entire stack of cards can thus be sortedaccording to the Title field, either numerically, alpha-betically, or by date depending on what has beenentered into the title field. All three fields can be

10

searched for key words or phrases. These sorting andsearching capacities have been downplayed :n thedesign of INQUIRE, even though they are frHliarfrom other programs, in favor of an cmphasis onmaking meaningful connections bet' een cards (seeTags below).

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Figure 12

Once information has been entered, whether pains-takingly by transcribing important sections of audio-tapes or typing in scraps of handwritten notes fromthe library, or magically by scanning text and imagesinto a card or by linking note cards to video sequences,the real problem for the student lies in figuring outhow to organize this undigested information. To theextent that INQUIRE is a database for children, itneeds to be intuitive and flexible far more than it needsto be fast or powerful (i.e., include sophisticated searchand sort features).

Most children haven't the time, the opportunity,or the inclination to become compulsive collectors ofdata. On the contrary, early research findings indicatethat the "bottleneck" created by asking groups of col-laborating students to type their notes on the com-puter serves a very important function: They have todiscuss which pieces of the information they havecollected from various sources warrant entry into theINQUIRE database. Since only one person sits at thekeyboard and the others discuss and dictate, they alsohave to discuss how to phrase the entries. This notonly permits genuine role differences (e.g., the mostarticulate is not necessarily the best typist), but alsofosters reflection about the information being entered.

Most conventional databases permit some kind ofkey phrase or title search and sort, as does INQUIRE.Large stacks of cards can be searched through rather

quickly, either by asking for cards containing a spe-cific word or phrase or by sorting the cards accordingto information in the title area. But we know fromprevious research that those kinds of searc es andsorts are difficult and often not useful for children.They require having understood what concepts arekey at the time the information was first encoun-teredand they also require reliable spelling.

A system is needed that allows children to sorttheir card collection into piles without at first know-ing what the cards in any pile have in common, just anintuition that there is something that relates them.Eventually, as they sift through the piles and examinethem from different perspectives, using a variety ofbrainstorming and analyzing tools to do so, a categorysystem should evolve. Once students can name thefactor(s) a pile has in common, they should be able tolabel the pile, annotate the name, change it at any time,and cross-reference cards by assigning them to mul-tiple piles. Children have to be invited to think aboutthe fact that any given piece of information may berelevant to a number of different issues, may belong toa number of different piles for a variety of reasons. Wewant them to become as conscious as possible of thekind of intellectual decision making involved in cate-gorizing, while making the actual implementation ofthe categorizing activity as intuitive and simple aspossible.

The system we decided on consists of a set of eightgraphic Tags that can be "stamped" on any card(Figure 13). Each card can have any or all (or none) ofthe tags. The child can search for all the cards coni.ain-ing any combination of tags. Once a particular combi-nation of tags has been selected, clicking in the littleeye button in the upper left corner of the title field willbring up the next card with the same set of tags.

Figure 13

February'1990

Code CardThe Code card is where tag combinations are selectedfor retrieval by clicking in any combination of theeight tags (Figure 14). This card is designed to allowstudents to think about their category system. There isplenty of room to comment on the category labels orto make them as elaborate as needed. By using the titlefield in conjunction with the tags, a complex system ofsubcategories can be developed by more sophisti-cated students. The two schemes permit different andnot necessarily related ways to organize tne informa-tion. One system could be used to label the cards bytopic category, while the other one is used to mark thecards for such things as looking up missing facts,doubtful spelling, or even evaluating the importanceof the information. As with all the INQUIRE tools andfeatures, a good teacher can inventor model appropri-ate and interesting uses. Our intention is to supportsuch efforts, not to prescribe them.

Figure 14

If the information contained in the card is in arather raw state (i.e., if there are a number of unrelatedideas or facts included), tagging the card and therebyplacing it into a category system mightbe quite diffi-cult for students. Some in-between step is probablyneeded to facilitate abstracting the raw information inthe body of the cara and connecting it to a centraltheme. Two tools are included in INQUIRE to helpwith that process.

Students can summarize what they consider to bethe essential import of the information on the card inthe Main Point field (Figure 15). This also helps stu-dents go further in their note-taking than merelymaking a verbatim copy of sentences found in some

textbook or encyclopedia. They can still make a copy,not being sure .%/liat parts of the text thatseem relevantact aally contain important information, but now theyare invited to summarize and paraphrase that infor-mation in notes to themselves. As a next step in theprocess of categorizing the infonnation in a card, stu-dents can try to relate it to the central question of theinquiry in another hidden field.

Figure 15

Drawing CardsNot all information comes in the form of text.INQUIRE's Drawing cards are intended for keepingtrack of graphic information (Figure 16). Anyonefamiliar with MacPaint will know how to use the toolsprovided with these cards. Theycan be used to drawanything from expressive doodles to precise blue-prints.

Figure 16

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These cards are intended for anygraphic, whethercreated by the student, imported from other electronicmedia, oi scanned in from print media. A feature isprovided to allow children to annotate these imagesby placing movable arrow buttons linked to explana-tory fields on any part of the graphic. Only the littlearrow is visible until it is clicked, when the pop-upfield containing the explanation or comment becomesvisible for as long as the mouse button is held down.

Math CardsINQUIRE provides Math cards to keep track of andplay around with quantitative information (Figure17). These cards consist of sb: separate scrolling fieldswhich can be linked together. The extreme right fieldis used for row totals. The function buttons across thebottom of the card are used to perform calculations.Various tools in the math menu allow children to dosuch things as switch columns of data around, sortentries in a field in numerical or alphabetical order,rank-order entries in any or all fields, and export datato a graph card.

Figure 17

It is also possible to link or synchronize the fourscrolling data fields, and thus to create a simple matrixfor certain statistical calculations involving row andcolumn entries. But the emphasis is on the kinds ofquantitative manipulations children actually need todo to interpret their own data. The design of some ofthe math features, for instance, is based on our long-term observation of students in a junior high schoolscience class. We noticed that they tended to performscience experiments in pairs and then get together asa class to share their results. The usual way in whichthey wrote down each other's results was by seating

order. When it came to interpreting these data, itturned out that seating order was not a meaningfulvariable and that all those numbers had to be rear-ranged and rewritten, which often resulted in errors.The Sort and Rank features were included to make itpossible for students to rearrange any single columnand to rearrange all lumps in accordance with therank order of any one Lolumn.

Video ControllerINQUIRE is a multimerAa tool. The Brain stormer andthe Note-Taker modules each contain Video menusthat allow students to control any videodisc throughINQUIRE and to link video images or segments di-rectly to note cards (Figure 18).

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The video controller pops up across thebottom ofthe screen. The central buttons allow the user to playthe videodisc forward or backward at three speeds, tostop the video, and to step and scan through the discin both directions. The two buttons to the right controlthe audio, turning either, both, or neither of the twoaudio tracks on or off. The longer arrow button to theleft is a pop-up menu that allows the user to showframe numbers on the video screen, search for chap-ters or frames, turn the video off, eject the disc, or geta video logger.

The video logger consists of four parallel fields. Itcan be stretched from a single line up to 25 lines thattake up the entire height of the screen. When thestudent clicks in the first or the third field on each line,the logger notes down the current video frame num-ber. When the student clicks in the little field in themiddle (containing the line numbef), the videodiscplays from the frame number in the first field to the

frame number in the third field. The fourth field is anopen field in which the student can name or annotatevideo segments.

Since the video controller is availableon each notecard, student-generated text or images or calculationscan be linked directly to video segments on anycommercially available videodisc. This allows forgreater flexibility in the use cf these videodiscs than isusually provided in the software that comes withthem. Since much of the commercial videodisc soft-ware is HyperCard based, however, entire cardscontaining explanatory text on: dditional images fromthose programs can also be copied and pasted intoINQUIRE.

Source CardsWith information coming from multimedia sources, itbecomes particularly important to help students keeptrack of and evaluate these sources. The Source cardsare intended as more than a simple bibliographicallisting (Figure 19).

I I I (?) 1 .0 1 c's> ISource:

Oaf

Figure 19

INQUIRE does not automate the process of enter-ing references. Writing formally correct bibliographi-cal information may occur to more experienced in-quirers, since they will have experienced the hardwork entailed in going back over all the informationand trying to remember where it came from. If astudent does not enter complete source information,however, the activity of sifting back through the col-lected nuggets of information and identifying theirorigins can be a helpful revisionary process. It can leadto new questions, to new sorting schemes, and to newevaluation of the value of the information.

ed1. Rep. No 50

Since we are trying to encourage the use of diversesources, from interviews with experts to videodiscs,the format for entering source information should bekept flexible. A set of dialog boxes could be designedthat ask the students where the information comesfrom, who made it available, and when it was pro-duced, but aaditional formative research is needed toascertain how to ask these questions in a way thatilluminates their purpose.

At present, when the student selects Enter Sourcefrom the Apple menu, the description in the sourcefield of the note card is entered into the upper field asa new source card (after a check to see if a source cardwith the identical information already exists). Thatfield is closed; that is, one cannot alter the informationin the Source card but has to go back to the note cardto change it. This is intended as a precaution againstaccidental erasure or altering of source information.The bottom field is open. Its function is to invitestudents to comment on the source listed in the card.The little field on the right contains the identificationnumber of the card from which the source informa-tion was impelled. Clicking in it takes the studentback to that card.

The AnalyzerThe activities in the Analyzer are designed to be usefulthroughout an inquiry. Students can use them to thinkabout the information they have collected. Knowinghow to make sense of a large collection of vaguelyrelated facts is particularly hard for children. Theactivities provided in the Analyzer can be likened to agold digger's sieve. They allow students, under thecreative guidance of a good teacher, to sift the evi-dence. They learn about theory building and to look atthe same set of facts through a variety of lenses, toconsider alternatives, and to change perspectives.This module could contain mar, more thinkingschemes or strategies. The present version of IN-QUIRE includes a sample, designed to represent arange of activities from the linear to the topological,appropriate to different tasks and individual prefer-ences.

Eviden..e CardsThe most linear and. in a sense, the most conventionalof these analytic schemes is represented in a set ofEvidence cards. Students write an outcome of theirinquiryor a question into the Hypothesis field (Figure

14

20). They then look through all their relevant notecards and collect what they consider supporting evi-dence in the "Evidence for:" field. This part of theprocess is familiar to students. The next part, wherethey go back over the same information in their notecards and -ollect evidence that contradicts their hy-pothesis to put into the "Evidence against:" field, isgenerally less familiar to them. In the formative re-search we have conducted, students found this aninteresting exercise, though not easy, since it requiresswitching perspectives.

G3 I 1 d I CMHypothesis:

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Eviuence tor: Eviden :e a nins

Figure 20

Students are then asked to summarize the evi-dence they have collected in two separate summarystatements, one conclusion based on the evidencesupporting their hypothesis, and a different conclu-sion based on the contradictory evidence (Figure 21).They are, in effect, developing an argument and acounter-argument, even if each point in their argu-ment is not necessarily dealt with in their counter-argument. When students have finished stating their

b conclusions, INQUIRE asks them which of the twoconclusions persuades them (Figure 22).

This question appeals to students, probably be-cause it asks them what they think rather than whatthey know, and itmodels a process of theory buildingthey generally know little about. They tend to thinkthat the answers to scientific or intellectual questionsare "found" in the course cf research, either in booksor among the facts, like a shell on the beach. Thisprocess demonstrates something about how expertsdevelop theory by interpreting facts, by turning themover in their minc.s, and then fitting them into aconceptual picture.

Which conclusion persuades you?

For egainsl Not Ready) 1

Figure 21

a1 a

Cut Cards

Wh Conclusion:

*A 1 CD I .0 INew Hypothesis 6ion

Why not the other Conclusion:

Figure 22

In the final step in this activity, students are askedto explain why they were persuaded by the conclu-sion of their choice and why they were not persuadedby the other conclusion. A creative teacher cai I use thisrationalization activity as the beginning of an impor-tant discussion of the nature of interpretation, of whatmakes evidence valid, and what criteria can be justi-fied in deciding between alternatives. There can beany number of such sets of linked hypothesis/evi-dence/conclusion cards. The same evidence can beused to support or contradict any number of differenthypotheses, of course, either developed by differentstudents on the same basic topic or by the samestudent(s) or different aspects of the topic.

Analogy CardsThe Analogy activity also consists of three text fields(Figure 23). The top field is designed to contain thebasic statement of the analogy. One field holds thestudent's description of what the two elements of the

analogy have in common, while the other asks stu-dents to describe where the analogy breaks downor ismisleading. Formative research has shown that whenstudents make analogies, they tend to list all thewaysin which the two parts of the analogy are the same andall the ways in which they are different, which is oftena trivial enterprise. Asking them to point out wherethe analogy is misleading is intended to help themleave out trivial differences and concentrate on theimportant characteristics of the two concepts. With-out a teacher's supervision, however, students mightwell interpret the title question "What is misleading?"to mean "How are they different?"

I 4:1

Analogy

concepts they had in mind when they linked them bydrawing a line.

Whet do they have In common? What lc micleadlne

Figure 23

Electronic BlackboardsThe Electronic Blackboards are intended for drawingconcept maps or flow-charts (Figure 24). They allowstudents to write a number of key concepts into ideaboxes, which can be moved all around the screen, andto connect these boxes with lines. The pedagogicalin:port lies in the fact that each idea box is automati-cally linked with a small explanation field in whichstudents are invited to summarize their current un-derstanding of the concept (or evidence for their con-clusion). When playing around with these ideas, ar-ranging them into meaningful groups, or linking them,it is easy for students to forget how they defined theidea and what they were thinking about when theyincluded it on the board. The explanation field, acces-sible by clicking in the idea box, will remind them.They can revise the explanation as their thinkingprogresses. In addition, the links themselves are ac-companied by a similar explanation field. This allowsstudents to write down what relationship between

Figure 24

The special concept box menu allows fc r a greatmany options in the size and shape of the boxes, thetext, the lines and even the color of the background ofthe board (Figure 25). This allows students to drawhighly sophisticated, differentiated concept maps.When examining one's own (or another student's)map, for instance, one can add layers of interpretationby highlighting related ideas through giving them thesame size or shape, without altering any of the expla-nations or links. One can also copy a board with all itsboxes, links, and explanations so that different stu-dents can write explanations for the same conceptmap or create different arrangements of the sameideas. The wealth of graphic options also permits akind of pleasant, expressive fooling around that, wehope, makes the somewhat abstract activity of con-cept mapping inviting and fun for a greater number ofstudents.

ThickMediumThinStriped

Make Link

Moue LinkCut Link

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New BoxShapeFont

Edit

LinesNew Link

Background t,

EraseClear Board

ShadowRectangleNo BorderTransparent

PlainBoldItalieOutlino

16

Figure 25

1-01. Rep. No. 50

Graph CardsThe Graph Cards are designed to help students ana-lyze and think about graphic representations of quan-titative information (Figure 26). The program letsstudents graph anythingany set of numbers andany two variableswhether or not it makes sense. Weknow from the research literature that understandinggraphs is particularly difficult for students. INQUIREis not intended to teach graphing but to facilitategraph interpretation. The data to be graphed caneither be imiorted from Math Cards or entered di-rectly into a Gri :Al Card into one or two data columnson the right side of the card. The student can thenselect a kind of graph for either one or two variablesand watch the graph appear.

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LineBarPia I

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Window-RankColumn

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The most interesting feature of the Graph Card isthe window. A student can select any part of a graphby stretching a window across it and then move thewindow containing a piece of the graph all over thescreen for comparison. These windows can be flippedor rotated, making another set of comparisons pos-sible.

The Graph Cards also contain two explanationfields, one asking the child to state what this graphshows and the other to decide how this graph relatesto the question the inquiry is trying to answer. For theteacher who is concerned with letting students dis-cover what a graphic representation can themabout their own data, these kinds of summary fieldscan be useful tools.

e

Game CardsFinally, there is an example of a kind of analytic Gameincluded in this version of INQUIRE (Figure 27). Thisparticular game asks students to write a declaratorysentence, ideally a major conclusion they arrived at inthe course of their investigation. It then invites asecond player to "challenge" any word in that sen-tence by selecting it and then asking one of threequestions about it. The game requires that playerselaborate on their statements by articulating theirdefinitions of the terms they are using. We include itprimarily as an example of the kinds of game-likeactivities many teachers have developed for their ownuses. A program like INQUIRE might make it possibleto share (with appropriate credit) some of these inter-esting activities among teachers and students acrossschools.

NOV cbIlinge vend bg clicking it.

declarative centance orhypo:Oasis about a topic of Inquiry..

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Figure 27

Author's NoteThe work reported in this paper was supported by

Grant # NSF MDR-8550399 from the National Science Foun-dation Program in Applications of Advanced Technologies.Project staff: j... n Hawkins, Project Director; Cornelia Brun-ner, Designer and Macintosh Programmer; Frankie Mann,IBM Programmer; Sol Magzamen and Babette Moeller,Research Associates.