International Learning Networks: The ASCEND project The Arts and Sciences Collaborative Exchange
Network Development (ASCEND) project has two central goals: (1) to be an online network where learning collaborations between the arts and the sciences across disciplines and educational institutions are developed and tested, and (2) to provide educational content and assessments of distance education projects for
teachers and learners at the various sites in the network.
The organizational structure of ASCEND is based on the
Virtual Harlem prototype, a project in which engineers, computer scientists, psychologists, and New Media Studies scholars have joined with African American Studies scholars, literary critics, historians, artists, and creative writers to build a model of Harlem, N.Y. at the time of the Harlem Renaissance. As the model of Harlem in the 20s is constructed, its current electronic version is made available to teachers and students at the various sites in the Virtual Harlem network. Assessments of both the technology and the learning experience are ongoing.
At the heart of the ASCEND project are collaborative learning networks (CLNs) the prototype of which is the Virtual Harlem project which integrates education in African American culture with the most recent advances in instructional technology and distance learning. On the one hand, it acquaints the public with one of the most astonishing periods of African American Cultural Heritage—the Harlem Renaissance. On the other hand, it acquaints students at several levels of the educational system, especially minority students, with advances in instructional technology, particularly with the use of virtual reality technologies. These objectives— to experiment and to educate --are integral to our conception of a Collaborative Learning Network (CLN). Persons who collaborate in the project can share their research discoveries or their study interests in the Harlem Renaissance with others in the network thus disseminating knowledge about it and promoting continued explorations into this historical period and its u
As we envision it, a CLN—because of its complex structure—requires that persons in the network to be both teachers and learners. The
technical staff has to learn about the Harlem Renaissance from the non-technical staff. Similarly, the non-technical staff has to learn about the technologies of networking from the technical staff. Within this framework, everyone in the network is both teacher and learner at some level or with respect to some area of study. Even high school students who are learning about the Harlem Renaissance for the first time are encouraged to "discover" new materials relevant to the project and to impart their discoveries to others, including their teachers.
The unusual combination of disciplines in the project—African American culture, literary, historical, urban, gender, social, anthropological, artistic, graphic, dramatic studies, communication, psychology, engineering, computer science, and visualization—mandates that no one person in the network will be the master of any one perspective. At the same time, the diversity of perspectives allows each person in the network to view the subject matter and the technology from a previously unfamiliar perspective. Moreover, since the project is based on virtual reality scenarios, at the higher end of the technological spectrum, a certain excitement is continuously generated, especially when persons enter the network and view the work that has been completed.
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