seminar
DoodleBook: A New Tool for Science Education
There is growing evidence to show that drawing to learn, a visual and constructive learning strategy, is both engaging and effective. Emerging research is now suggesting that drawing should be recognized alongside writing, reading, and speaking as a key element in science education. This talk will present our recent work on drawing to learn in science (www.doodlebook.org). Developed with funding from the National Academies, DoodleBook serves two goals: (1) to make science more accessible and engaging through art; (2) to provide science students and educators, from kindergarten to college, with a free online space to create, collaborate, and share their own digital drawings. We will present our findings on how art students create drawings for scientific concepts, and how science teachers and students use the web tool in their classes.
<p>Dr. Jun Wang is a research scientist at the School of Information Studies, Syracuse University. He is interested in designing enjoyable Web applications for educational and research purposes. He is a principal investigator of National Academies Keck Future Initiative-sponsored project, “Drawing-based Social Learning” (doodlebook.org), that has generated hundreds of scientific illustrations. He is excited that both teachers and students found the tool helpful and effective. He is also excited that college art students are able to produce excellent comics to interpret scientific and health topics. <br /><br />He is also a principal investigator of an NSF-sponsored game-based citizen science project (citizensort.org) that has attracted thousands of game players to help classify images for scientific research. The game has been featured and reported in media such as the Guardian, Muse Magazine, and National Geographic. His recent interests include how to design systems to combine deep learning-based machines and human brains for scientific image classification, and he is delighted that his newly designed game, Living Links, has been enjoyed by many players.<br /><br /></p>