The design and evaluation of classroom supports for seamless integration of a dynamic modeling tool

As students are engaged in sustained inquiry supported by technology various challenges arise. One particular challenge is how to introduce learning technologies within a currently enacted curriculum. To meet this challenge student supports must both be imbedded within the technology itself (intrinsic supports) as well as within the classroom (extrinsic supports). Learner centered design research (Soloway 1996; Stratford, 1996, Jackson, et al., 1996) has described several intrinsic supports which facilitates students in learning technologies. This study extends this line of research on the issues of imbedding learning technologies by concentrating on the classroom supports that enables technology to be introduced seamlessly within a curriculum. The technology utilized in this study is a dynamic modeling tool, Model-It, that allows the learner to plan, build, and test dynamic qualitative models.