Resumen de Educational virtual environments as a lens for understanding both precise repeatability and specific variation in learning ecologies.
As a global cyberinfrastructure, the Internet makes authentic digital problem spaces like educational virtual environments (EVEs) available to a wide range of classrooms, schools and education systems operating under different circumstantial, practical, social and cultural conditions. And yet, if the makers and users of EVEs both have a hand in what can be initially achieved and subsequently repeated, then replication is not only a matter of precise repeatability but also specific variation. In this light, the study enlists one EVE in order to examine both classroom learning and educational research methodology. Two Singapore secondary school enactments of the Quest Atlantis Taiga curriculum are compared with one another and with previously published US enactments. Statistically significant learning gains precisely repeat Barab and colleagues' findings while classroom practices specifically vary from its design narratives. Descriptions of the progressive development of Singapore enactments illustrate a methodological tack for understanding continuity and change within Singapore classrooms and between Singapore and US classrooms as necessary functions of diversity. The juxtaposition of these analyses characterize tensions between replication and implementation fidelity and, in turn, frame EVEs as a tool for understanding and leveraging precise repeatability and specific variability of curricula. Practitioner Notes What is already known about this topic Evidence suggests that some educational virtual environments (EVEs) can support learning., However, the processes through which EVEs operate remain underspecified., At the same time, it is undesirable to control in every way how teachers and students use EVEs and therefore more difficult to characterize these technologies in terms of causal mechanisms., What this paper adds EVEs can more systematically illuminate both a process of learning and a diverse repertoire of supporting strategies., With such a perspective, this paper describes how two Singapore classrooms make use of the same EVE differently while also documenting statistically significant learning gains., The paper also enlists the EVE as a frame for juxtaposing differences within and between education systems., Implications for practice and/or policy Documenting productive learning experiences across a range of unique locales and attendant facilitation strategies underscores that some curricula can be flexible., Several successful strategies that teachers employed departed from the EVE design and highlight ways that local adaptations can improve designs in ways that designers simply cannot anticipate., EVEs can be a useful tool for understanding strategic adaptations and enhancing the implicit partnerships that designers and teachers forge via curricula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
