1. Use of Digital Manipulatives for
Experimental Design
Joselyn J. Todd
Director of Instructional Technology
Cary Academy, Cary, NC
http://caryacademy.org
Lausanne Learning Institute

2. Welcome
• Who am I?
• **Who are you?** (Where are you from?
Primary Discipline ?)
• What are we going to do over
the next 50 minutes or so?
• (Browsers)

3. Participant Learning Objectives
Participants will be able to:
• Collaboratively explore how
a DM can be used with
students to study
experimental design
• Help students analyze the
affordances and limitations
of a DM
• Share digital manipulatives-
applets, simulations, and
software that can be used to
create such things
** Do you use DMs in your classroom? How?**

4. Why use DMs?
“Can students do this
experiment in a
classroom setting and
get reasonably
accurate data such
that the “science” or
“math” may be
discovered?”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Balance_%C3%A0_tabac_1850.JPG Creative Commons

5. Digital Manipulatives
• Recommendations: Update
your Java and Shockwave;
Safari, Firefox, Chrome, Op
era, etc. Have multiple
browsers on your machine.
• Look for DMs that allow
manipulation of variables
for experimental design.
• Avoid “simulations” - unless
you want to have your
students analyze them for
accuracy.

6. Let’s Collaborate
**Determine whether the following are useful for students to study
experimental design.** Explore for 5 minutes to determine if this is a
good DM for ED. What are the affordances and limitations of these
tools?
• DM 1 -
http://www.eduplace.com/kids/hmsc/activities/simulations/gr5/unitb.ht
ml
• DM 2 - http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/olc/dl/120074/bio18.swf
• DM 3 - http://www.learner.org/courses/envsci/interactives/ecology/

7. Exploring An Example
**Go to: http://phet.colorado.edu/sims/projectile-
motion/projectile-motion_en.html and “play” for 3-4
minutes. Use FireFox if you have it.**

8. Let’s Collaborate Further
**Having explored the tool now we will divide into
teams and develop short materials and methods in
order to design an experiment. Google Docs? Board?
Pirate Pad? Cacoo? We’ll use Pirate Pad.**
• T1- https://www.piratepad.ca/p/Simulation
• T2 - https://www.piratepad.ca/p/Simulation
• T3 - https://www.piratepad.ca/p/Simulation
Share Screen. Taking it Further!

9. Resources
Tools for Math and Science:
http://nlvm.usu.edu/
http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/
http://phet.colorado.edu/
http://www.explorelearning.com/
http://concord.org/activities ( Create your own:
http://mw.concord.org/modeler/ )
**Share your own resources in the Chat**

10. Joselyn’s Information
Joselyn J. Todd, Ph.D.
Director of Instructional Technology
Cary Academy, Cary, NC
joselyn_todd@caryacademy.org
919-228-4541
Twitter: @joselyntodd