Vol50,2,2007 283 ANNALS OF GEOPHYSICS, VOL. 50, N. 2, April 2007 Key words e-learning – Jigsaw method – EduSeis web tools 1. Introduction The Educational Seismological Project (Edu- Seis) is a research and experimentation project that is aimed at involving research centres, uni- versities, scientific museums and schools in the consolidation and maintenance of a prototype of a seismographic network that is formed of high technology and low cost components (Bobbio and Zollo, 2000). The project is designed to pro- mote the Earth Sciences (especially Seismology and Geophysics) and an to increase awareness of seismic risk at the level of high schools and the public at large through the «Città della Scienza» Science Centre in Naples. A network of digital seismographs has been installed in a number of high schools in Central and Southern Italy (Can- tore et al., 2003). Through the continuous updat- ing of seismic data, and following its analysis and processing, relevant events are selected and made available on the EduSeis website (http:// eduseis.na.infn.it) (fig. 1). The project has many educational, scientific and social goals. The main educational objec- tives are to train students and teachers in the New tools for scientific learning in the EduSeis project: the e-learning experiment Antonella Bobbio (1), Luciana Cantore (2), Nicola Miranda (3) and Aldo Zollo (2) (1) Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Osservatorio Vesuviano, Sezione Napoli, Italy (2) Dipartimento di Scienze Fisiche, Università degli Studi di Napoli «Federico II», Napoli, Italy (3) ITIS «E. Majorana», Somma Vesuviana, Napoli, Italy Abstract The Educational Seismological Project (EduSeis) is a scientific and educational project, the main aim of which is the development and implementation of new teaching methodologies in Earth Sciences, using seismology as a vehicle for scientific learning and awareness of earthquake risk. Within this framework, we have recently been experimenting with new learning and information approaches that are mainly aimed at a high school audience. In particular, we have designed, implemented and tested a model of an e-learning environment in a high school located in the surroundings of the Mt. Vesuvius volcano. The proposed e-learning model is built on the EduSeis concepts and educational materials (web-oriented), and is based on computer-supported collaborative learning. Ten teachers from different disciplines and fifty students at the ITIS «Majorana» technical high school (Naples) have been taking part in a cooperative e-learning experiment in which the students have been working in small groups (communities). The learning process is assisted and supervised by the teachers. The evaluation of the re- sults from this cooperative e-learning experiment has provided useful insights into the content and didactic val- ue of the EduSeis modules and activities. The use of network utilities and the «Learning Community» approach promoted the exchange of ideas and expertises between students and teachers and allowed a new approach to the seismology teaching through a multidisciplinary study. Mailing address: Dr. Antonella Bobbio, Istituto Naziona- le di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Osservatorio Vesuviano, Se- zione Napoli, Via Coroglio 156, 80124 Napoli, Italy; e-mail: bobbio@na.infn.it 284 Antonella Bobbio, Luciana Cantore, Nicola Miranda and Aldo Zollo analysis and interpretation of seismological da- ta. For this purpose, modules and teaching ac- tivities have been designed and tested using computer science and web-oriented tools (Can- tore et al., 2005). The scientific objective is to introduce into high schools the use of advanced instruments and experimental methods that are usually restricted to research laboratories, with the main product being the creation of an earth- quake waveform archive. Thus a large amount of this data can be used by the students and teachers for educational purposes. For the so- cial objectives, the project represents an effec- tive instrument for informing and creating an awareness of the seismic risk, for experimenta- tion into the efficacy of scientific communica- tion, and for an increase in the direct involve- ment of schools and the general public. 2. The e-learning experiment in the ITIS «Majorana» technical high school E-learning has been defined as the use of new multimedia technologies and the potential of the internet to improve the quality of teach- ing/learning. According to this definition, rather than being a new tool for formal education that can be used in the classroom, e-learning should be considered as a modern method for teaching and learning that integrates and completes the work in classroom. On the «ALPI» platform of the Edulab cul- tural association, an e-learning model has been built that is based on the EduSeis concepts and its related educational materials. This model is based on computer-supported collaborative learning (Ligorio, 1995; Trentin, 1998), which is an innovative method for teaching and learning that adopts modern information and communica- tion technologies. The EduSeis educational ac- tivities (e.g., earthquake location and magnitude estimate, seismogram analysis) are mainly based on web and internet communication tools and are suitable for this kind of experimentation. De- termination of their teaching value is also one of the main educational objectives of this project. A number of students at the ITIS «Majo- rana» technical high school (Naples) who are following the teaching strategy of the «Learning Fig. 1. The EduSeis website (http://eduseis.na.infn.it). 285 New tools for scientific learning in the EduSeis project: the e-learning experiment Community» and the «Jigsaw» method (Clarke, 1994) have been involved in this cooperative e- learning experiment. The basic idea is that the students work in small groups (communities) where each member evolves gradually from an initial stage as a «fellow learner». This is fol- lowed by an intermediate level as a «teacher», and then finally as a «scientist». The learning process is assisted and supervised by the teach- ers, who have already improved their use of the internet and their knowledge of Earth Science. 2.1. The Jigsaw method at the Majorana school The Jigsaw method uses the cooperative concept to promote individual learning, where- by this kind of structure creates interdepend- ence and status equalization (Clarke, 1994). This Jigsaw method is a very useful tool for helping students to integrate knowledge and un- derstanding that has been drawn from various sources and experts. Indeed, the basic idea be- hind the Jigsaw method is very simple: a gener- al theme and a number of related topics are identified, and the application of this strategy is carried through the following steps: – define the general theme that the class will work on; – split the class in small groups of students; – assign to each group a topic related to the general theme. Each group member will be- come an expert in this topic, using didactic ma- terial and support from the teachers. – Re-mix the students into new groups that include these experts of each topic; – reassemble the original groups where each member teaches the rest of the group what they have learnt about the other topics; – the groups each present their own analy- sis of the general theme to the entire class. 2.2. Trial of the e-learning platform with the EduSeis tools Ten teachers from different disciplines and fifty students at different educational levels have been involved in the trials around this EduSeis- based e-learning platform. The fifty students were divided into five groups, so that students of different levels were present in each of these groups (Miranda, 2004). The general theme cho- sen for this experiment was seismology. This choice was prompted by the collaboration be- tween the school and the research staff of the EduSeis project. Indeed, during this collabora- tion, teachers of scientific disciplines trained themselves on and experimented with the tools provided by the EduSeis website, which they evaluated as being suitable for this e-learning ex- periment. At the same time, to test the back- ground knowledge of the students participating in the project, students were asked to initially complete a multiple-choice questionnaire on Seismology and Earth Sciences in general. During the «kick-off» meeting, the teachers showed the «Edulab» platform architecture to all of the student groups and illustrated the guidelines for using the tools built on this plat- form (Edulab, 2001). One of each of the five di- dactic units concerning different topics on seis- mology that have been set-up on the EduSeis website were attributed to each group; these five units relate to the following: – world-wide seismicity and earthquake gen- esis; – seismometry and seismic networks; – seismic waves and their propagation; – earthquake classification according to epi- central distance; – observation and interpretation of seismo- grams (complexity analysis). In the first step, each group became the ex- perts on their own topic. This was achieved by their using both the teaching material available from the EduSeis website, and advanced search- ing on the internet to improve their knowledge and to acquire further expertise on the subject (fig. 2). The exchange of data and information among the students within each group occurred through the internet, using the tools within the chat and forum services for document up-load- ing and down-loading, which were all made available through the platform. For each student the first approach is to consult and use the Edu- Seis material and tools available on the website, improving the knowledge on the topic through an internet research, the results of which have been shared with each member of its own group 286 Antonella Bobbio, Luciana Cantore, Nicola Miranda and Aldo Zollo using the forum, the e-mail and the chat servic- es. Most of student activity for the e-learning ex- periment was carried out via computer both in the school and at home, only a 30% of all exper- imentation phases were face-to-face with and without the teachers’ presence. In this phase, all of the students were con- sidered as being apprentices (or «fellow learn- ers»), and they were involved in: – learning new concepts, and being opening to questioning their own knowledge; – accessing new information using various internet communication channels; – discussing their own ideas, doubts and problems, through the chat and forum services available through the platform. As a major result of this phase, a number of documents (e.g., Powerpoint presentations, Word Fig. 2. A scheme of the e-learning experiment at the ITIS «Majorana» technical school, Naples. Fig. 3. An example of a typical product produced by the students in the 1st phase of the process. The products are included on the website and made available for the community. 287 New tools for scientific learning in the EduSeis project: the e-learning experiment documents, Excel data and analysis sheets) were produced by each group, and the high quality of the content demonstrated their enthusiastic par- ticipation and the success that they had obtained through working in these collaborative communi- ties. A typical starting point for the realization of each product in the e-learning experiment is the generation of Conceptual maps which are dia- grams showing the relationships between con- cepts in the form of propositions. Concepts are included within boxes whereas the relations be- tween them are explicated by means of connect- ing lines. These maps can often be used to com- municate complex ideas. An example of a Con- ceptual map produced by students is shown in fig. 3. In the second phase, each group was split, and five new groups were formed in such a way that an expert on each seismology topic covered (see above) was present in each new group, so that each student could then be a teacher for the other members of their new group. In this phase, all of the students were considered as «teachers», and this involved: – sharing with each other of their own stock of knowledge; – teaching of their acquired expertise to the other members of their new group; – demonstrating the reasonableness of their own opinions to the other members of their new group. In the last phase, the original five groups were re-assembled, and each member pro- gressed further on the basis of the experience they had gained in the previous phases. Having acquired a deeper knowledge of these seismo- logical topics, each group was ready to make full use of the EduSeis activities implemented on the website, by using either the web tools supplied or analogue devices in the school lab- oratories. At the end of the experiment, each group presented its work to the whole commu- nity, i.e. to the classes and the teachers involved in the experiment. In this phase all of the students were consid- ered as «scientists», and they were faced with the need to demonstrate: – their acquisition of expertise within a new theme (i.e. seismology) that is not a part of the scholastic curricula; – their ability to promote the diffusion of seismological concepts and an increased seis- mic risk awareness to a widespread community. 3. The EduSeis didactic Unit: an example The teaching Unit chosen for showing the architecture of a typical didactic unit is: «Seis- mic waves and their propagation». Four topics are correlated to this theme: – Section 1: Seismic Wave Propagation. – Section 2: The Interior of the Earth. – Section 3: The Seismic Wave. – Section 4: Travel-Time Curves. Each section contains one or more activities that are designed around the use of web tools. In the following, the classical structure of an ac- tivity will be illustrated, with this example re- lating to the activity: «An analysis of the P and S waves on seismograms». 3.1. Objectives Measurement of P-wave and S-wave first arrivals with the help of theoretical estimates from the Jeffreys and Bullen (1940) travel-time curves (these give the travel times of all of the main seismic phases from different depths of hypocentre to surface stations at different dis- tances). 3.2. Area of expertise: seismology The activity is subdivided into two main phases: First phase – Inferring arrival times from Jeffreys and Bullen curves. Ingredients: an event selected from the EduSeis archives; the «distance applet» for the calculation of epicen- tral distance (fig. 4); Jeffreys and Bullen tables; a ruler. Second phase – Estimation of P-wave and S-wave arrival times inferred from seismo- grams. Ingredients: an event selected from the EduSeis ar-chives; the «SeisGram2K applet» (Lomax, 2000) for the visualization and analy- sis of seismograms; the origin time of the earth- 288 Antonella Bobbio, Luciana Cantore, Nicola Miranda and Aldo Zollo quake inferred from national and/or internation- al seismic alerting agencies; the theoretical val- ues of the arrival times inferred from the Jef- freys and Bullen curves. In this activity, the use of web tools under the supervision of the teachers allows the stu- dents to compute the epicentral distance (the distance from the earthquake epicentre to the point of observation) of the chosen event, and to recognize the first arrival of the P and S waves using the Jeffreys and Bullen curves to provide reference values. The basic idea of each of these activities is to lead the student through a «learning by discovering» process. 4. Results and conclusions One of the most interesting factors that has arisen from this e-learning experiment has been to promote the working of the students and teachers within a «community of learners». In this model, the classroom is changed into a real community where everyone has different, but changing, roles, as apprentice, teacher and sci- entist, with the consequent exchange of tasks and responsibilities. A selection of the products from this exper- iment have been published on the website of the school, and these have become a useful support for the didactic activities. The involvement of students in this high-social-impact activity rep- resents an opportunity for the increasing of their own awareness of earthquake risk. This is thus seen as improving their understanding of seis- mic phenomena and the potential damage aris- ing therefrom, along with their knowledge of the measures that can be implemented to miti- gate these effects. Figure 5a,b shows a comparison between the input and output values of a questionnaire administered at the beginning and the end of this e-learning experiment for two different age-level classes. Based on the number of cor- rect answers, a quantitative value can be put on the knowledge that has been gained about the topic under consideration, and therefore the positive effects of this e-learning experiment. Fig. 4. A web tool for a didactic activity 289 New tools for scientific learning in the EduSeis project: the e-learning experiment The evaluation of the results from this e-learn- ing experiment has also provided useful in- sights into the contents and the didactic value of the EduSeis didactic modules and activities. The success of this e-learning experiment is due to the great involvement and motivation of the students, who have provided a large number of high quality products that testify to their en- thusiasm for working in cooperative communi- ties. The use of the network utilities for the elaboration of the final products has provided each student with the opportunity to feel that they are themselves a protagonist of the experi- mentation, and it has promoted the exchange of ideas and expertise between students and teach- ers. This innovative method that is based on the strategy of the «learning community» has, moreover, allowed a new approach to seismolo- Fig. 5a,b. A comparison between before and after values of a questionaire administered at the beginning and the end of the experiment for 1st and 2nd leveles (a) and 3rd and 4th levels (b). a b 290 Antonella Bobbio, Luciana Cantore, Nicola Miranda and Aldo Zollo gy through a multidisciplinary study, promoting the ability to deal with such complex themes as the study of seismology. Acknowledgements We are grateful to all of the teachers and stu- dents of the ITIS «Majorana» technical school in Naples who, with much enthusiasm, took on ac- tive roles in this project. We wish also to thank Angela Petrillo, Mariella Simini, André Herrero and Luca D’Auria for their contribution in the re- alization of EduSeis website. We acknowledge the anonymous referee for his fruitful comments and suggestions. REFERENCES BOBBIO, A. and A. ZOLLO (2000): The educational broad- band seismic network at Naples (Southern Italy), Or- feus Newsletter, 2 (3), p. 23. CANTORE, L., A. BOBBIO, F. DI MARTINO, A. PETRILLO, M. 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