From: Barry Kort Subject: The Muse in Schools To: ednet@noc1.oit.umass.edu Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 02:02:50 -0400 (EDT) Cc: bkort@musenet.org (Barry Kort) Greetings, EdNetters. This is the 6th installment of my journey into cyberspace and education. When we began MicroMuse, we saw it as extra-curricular, orthogonal to conventional school-based education. I was frankly surprised that any teachers would consider using it in their classrooms, given our intention to depart from the three foundations of school-based education: Teaching, Curriculum, and Assessment. Nonetheless, a few intrepid teachers ventured into MicroMuse in search of fresh ideas, and at least a few liked what they saw. In an earlier installment, I mentioned MariMuse at Phoenix College in the Maricopa Community College District. MariMuse was the first Muse set up specifically to serve a K-12 School (the Longview Elementary School of Phoenix). Longview is an inner-city school, Chapter 1, predominantly Black, Hispanic, and Native American. Two heroic pioneers, Jim Walters and Billie Hughes (both of Phoenix College) conceived MariMuse as an outreach to the 4th and 5th graders at Longview. I knew from my experience on MicroMuse that the Muse was a godsend to the gifted and talented students. But what of the disadvantaged, who were already two years behind in reading grade level? Billie and Jim proved that the Muse, operated in school, could turn those students around. No one was more astounded than me. Maybe there was a place for the Muse in school, after all. Another pioneering venture took place at the Graham and Parks Alternative School in Cambridge. G&P was already participating in an NSF-funded testbed sponsored by my colleagues at BBN. They had a Mac lab and an Internet Server with a 56-Kb line to the Internet. The Testbed Project was exploring various activities that kids could do with Internet access. I put a Muse on the Internet Server at G&P, and showed a few kids how to connect. A small cadre of them immediately became hooked. But it was an eighth grader named Lucia Somberg who really made it happen. As a seventh grader, Lucia loved the Muse. When she became an eighth grader, she went to Toby Caplin, the 6th grade teacher, and asked to teach the Muse to the 6th grade class. Toby agreed. The group met in the Mac lab on Friday afternoons. Toby and I were present. We began by talking about building a world inside the Muse. And we began with a Social Contract. The kids discussed the rules by which they wished to live, and they wrote their own Social Contract. Toby found this fascinating; the kids were *doing* social studies. We hadn't even gotten to the technical stuff yet. Lucia taught the technical elements, while Toby and I provided guidance as the students selected projects to build. Before long, the Musers at G&P were coming in on their free time during and after school to work on the Muse. Many also obtained Internet access from home, and worked on both the G&P Muse and on MicroMuse. Since the G&P Muse was on the Internet, the students could invite in their peers from around the world. Every invited person had to be hosted by a G&P student who assumed responsibility for them. I was astonished at Lucia's talent at finding bright, talented, and well-mannered people to bring into the Muse. Lucia wrote an essay about her experience with the Muse at Graham and Parks. You can read it on the Web at: http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/iiip/Cambridge/essay.html Lucia is now a freshman at Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School. At her request, I gave the school an old MicroVAX II so Lucia and her friends could run a Muse in the high school. I expect history to repeat itself. That's another thing about the Muse. It enables people with leadership to exercise their genius. The students at Lexington High School also run their own Muses, and they are helping the Middle Schools get started, too. Just today I met with the Technology Coordinator for Lexington Public Schools about ways to use the Muse in school. One of the best ways to get started is to let the Computer Club set it up, then invite students to do term projects in the Muse. I've seen projects in just about every discipline from history, literature, science, technology, and geography. Whatever the students are studying, they find a way to construct it in the Muse. I've even seen the Muse used successfully for classes in Philosophy, Ethics, and Religious Studies. In fact, one of my favorite ways to spend an evening on MicroMuse is in a small discussion group, in the spirit of Philosophy 101, or the traditional Rabbinic-Talmudic Discsussion Group. In the future, I expect that working professionals in diverse disciplines will be able to lead small online workshops with students from all over the Internet. Some of those workshops could take place within a Muse or other virtual environment for situated learning. I would like to see public schools set aside one or two hours per day for students to sign up for individually selected modules offered via the Internet, and led by experts who can share both their knowledge and their passion for their chosen field. It is so much better when both student and teacher love the subject and explore it together. The Internet and the Muse make that dream possible. --Barry