MIT StarLogo Community of Learners 2000

July 17-27, 2000 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (9:00am - 4:00pm weekdays)

Announcing the MIT StarLogo Community of Learners Workshop for secondary school teachers.  This workshop is your chance to gain hands-on experience in building computer simulations to use in your classroom.   You will learn to build models appropriate to your classes on topics ranging from demographics to predator-prey dynamics and from particle collisions to market economies.  You will also work with other faculty to create supporting curricular materials and devise strategies for bringing the materials you develop into your classroom.

The workshop will use the freely available StarLogo software developed at the MIT Media Lab.  StarLogo is designed especially for helping people create models of “decentralized systems” – that is, systems in which patterns arise from interactions among lots of individual objects.  For example, StarLogo enables you to explore how bird flocks arise from interactions among individual birds or how traffic jams arise from interactions among individual cars.

In addition to building computer models, you will engage in off-computer activities that parallel the on-computer work that you will be doing.  These activities put you in the role of an animal making decisions to survive or a person deciding how to avoid getting sick during an epidemic. No programming experience is required for this workshop – just a willingness to learn.

This program is open to teachers from secondary schools in the Boston/Cambridge metropolitan area.  Information regarding graduate credit for this course will be available shortly.

If you would like to attend the MIT StarLogo Community of Learners workshop, please submit an application containing the following materials:
-Name, School, Subjects and Grades taught
-A short explanation of why you want to attend
-An indication of a commitment to pursue using these materials during the academic year
-A letter of support from an administrator in your school

The deadline for application is April 15, 2000. Applications should be submitted to Eric Klopfer, 105 Massachusetts Ave, MIT Building 9-511, Cambrdige, MA 02139. Enrollment is limited to 25 people, and priority will be given to schools with multiple teachers attending.

For more information email: Eric Klopfer (klopfer@mit.edu) or call 617-253-2025

Also see the StarLogo home page at http://www.media.mit.edu/starlogo