COLLABORATING TO BUILD THEDIGITAL WATER EDUCATION LIBRARY
DWEL
Collaborative Projects in the NSDL:Institutional Collaborations
Bryan L. AivazianDWEL Project ManagerNatrona County School DistrictCasper, Wyoming
•DWEL is a special collection of “Exemplary” resources that will be included in the Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE).
•DWEL is being built for educators and students in K-12 and informal education settings who are interested in learning about the science, economics, and politics of water.
•DWEL is being built by teams of K-12 classroom teachers, scientists, and other content experts.
WHAT IS DWEL?
OVERARCHING PROJECT GOAL
To help K-12 educators and learners quickly find, evaluate, use, and create digital resources that support active learning about Water in the Earth System.
•Water Information Resources•Scientific, Economic, Policy
•Water Databases•e.g. Precipitation, Stream, Groundwater
•Water Images and visualizations•Water Models and Simulations•Water Activities… based on Standards•Water Assessments•Water Education Research
What Will DWEL Include?
Center for Science, Mathematics and Technology Education, Colorado state UniversityDr. Edward Geary, Dr. Andrew Warnock, Jaime Whitlock, Courtney Butler
Natrona County School District, Casper, WyomingBryan L. Aivazian
University of Colorado , BoulderDr. Tamara Sumner (Center for Lifelong Learning and Design),Michael Khoo (Graduate Student - Communications)
COLLABORATING PARTNERS
DLESE PROGRAM CENTER (DIGITAL LIBRARY FOR EARTH SYSTEMS EDUCATION)Mary Marlino (Director), Holly Devaul, Karon Kelly, Katy Ginger
NATIONAL SCIENCE TEACHERS ASSOCIATION
UNIVERSITY CORPORATION FOR ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH
COLLABORATING PARTNERS
DWEL COLLABORATIONS I. WORKING GROUPS
•DWEL is being created specifically by and for practicing K-12 classroom teachers, students, and informal educators.•Our review process ensures that users will find high quality, grade level appropriate resources on a variety of water topics and issues.
DWEL COLLABORATIONS I. WORKING GROUPS (cont.)
•Formalize communication mechanisms•Workflow segmented into discrete, manageable “campaigns”•Formal, web-based review process
While this distributed work force is “messy”, we believe that it does provide better representation of the target audiences that we are attempting to serve.
DWEL COLLABORATIONSII. ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH
•Michael Khoo, doctoral candidate at the University of Colorado
•Background in anthropology and communication•Ethnographic research on DWEL groups•Formative feedback on communication mechanisms•Summative descriptions of processes to guide future
collection building efforts
DWEL COLLABORATIONSIII. DLESE Program Center•Customized cataloging tool for DWEL•In-house quality review of DWEL Records•Test bed for large collection development:
•Scope document•Collection level metadata•Collection review process
DWEL COLLABORATIONS IV. Publishing Model
•National Science Teachers Association•Revising Earth: The Water Planet•Take advantage of digital resources•Some portions freely available through DWEL collection•Model of collaboration between publishers and digital libraries