TECHdotMN: News about Minnesota Startups

Aaron Doering can’t say with certainty whether he invented the phrase “adventure learning.”

He is, however, credited with defining adventure learning as an educational approach.

Six years ago, he published the first established definition and guiding framework for AL, which is described as “a hybrid distance educational approach.”  Along with Charles Miller and Cassie Scharber, fellow co-directors at the University of Minnesota’s LT Media Lab, Doering continues to refine and apply the innovative construct using modern technology.

Adventure learning is at the core of one of the Media Lab’s most ambitious ongoing projects: Earthducation.

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Via Polar Field

“Students in schools across the Arctic are about to begin an “adventure learning” journey, an effort to view their communities—and the impact of climate warming—through the eyes of local elders.

The vehicle for this adventure is a project called North of Sixty, a National Science Foundation-funded initiative led by the University of Minnesota’s Aaron Doering. North of Sixty combines classic ethnographic data collection with modern-day technology to educate seventh-to-twelfth-grade students in five countries across the Arctic.”

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Advances in technology are changing the way we look at the world; they’re also changing the way we learn about it.

Developed by the faculty of the Learning and Technologies Dept. at the University of Minnesota, GeoThentic is built around geospatial technologies such as geographic information systems (GIS) and is designed to provide an immersive online learning environment that can assist K-12 students in meeting all of the National Geography Standards.

GIS technology, which is at the heart of this software, allows users to visualize geographic trends, patterns and relationships in the form of maps and charts. Integrated with GeoThentic and Google Earth, it creates a scaffolded learning environment in which students solve authentic complex problems.

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About six years ago, the process for teaching American Sign Language at the University of Minnesota was one ripe with inefficiencies. Standard procedure for testing was that a student would record 30-45 minutes of signing with a video camera, and then submit the tape to an ASL instructor who would be tasked with watching and grading about 40 such videos.

This approach inevitably created a bottleneck, wherein students would have to wait 3 – 5 weeks to receive feedback that amounted to a grade and a few text comments.

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The Learning Technologies Media Lab (LTML) on the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus was a quiet place when I walked in a summers afternoon last Wednesday.

This hub for technology oriented sustainability and educational experiments is nestled within one of the nation’s largest colleges and there are a number of groundbreaking projects quietly underway. When the school year commences this fall, it will once again become a playground of progressive tech activity.

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