The Modelling4All web application needs to allow the modeller to run graphical simulations within the browser. The problem here is that Netlogo can already be used to create java applets but flash has a much higher penetration across browsers. This blog page sets out the stall very clearly:
http://www.realchat.com/blog/java-vs-flash/
Flash can also be used to create nicer looking UIs but Java is improving all the time. A design decision needs to be made…
From Sherry Turkle’s influential paper titled Seeing Through Computers I like this section:
In the physics department, the debate about simulation was even sharper. Only a small subset of real-world physics problems can be solved by purely mathematical, analytical techniques. Most require experimentation in which one conducts trials, evaluates results, and fits a curve through the resulting data. Not only does the computer make such inductive solutions easier, but as a practical matter, it also makes many of them possible for the first time. As one faculty member put it:
A student can take thousands of curves and develop a feeling for the data. Before the computer, nobody did that because it was too much work. Now, you can ask a question and say, “Let’s try it.” The machine does not distance students from the real, it brings them closer to it.
Because it pitches computers as tools for visualising and experimenting with systems that need to be understood mathematically. Not just at the advanced theoretical level but all through education – the learning of mathematics through using a wide range of systems of representation.
What I think is missing from this article is reference to simulations as being tools for cognitive offloading and the system of representation having an optimal relationship with the problem space and the individual or group researching the problem. Graphical simulations are powerful where emergent dynamics, iterations through generations and parallel processes are important, and where morphology is preserved in the simulation this can help too.
I was struck by the elegance of the world without oil game. This is an exercise in envisioning the future where oil runs out over a period of time (currently up to week 32). The ‘game’ is defined as:
How do I participate?
(1) Imagine your life in this oil shock. (2) Create something on the Web to express your reality: a blog post, an image, a video, an audio file. (3) Tag it “worldwithoutoil” so others can find it. (4) Tell us about your creation by emailing it to us. Be sure to include a link to your story! Also: you can help guide others. Create a “thread” – a chain of links to WWO material that helps readers understand WWO – and email it to us.
Can anyone participate?
Yes. People go to the World Without Oil webpages, where they see the price of fuel and the effects of shortages week by week. They then create something on the web to express how their lives would look if this “alternate reality” were truly happening. They write blog entries, shoot photos and videos, then post them on the Internet with the tag “worldwithoutoil.” The result: we now have thousands of pieces of “evidence” of what an oil shock would look and feel like, from a very wide range of viewpoints. And we want that number to keep growing. We want to play it, so we don’t live it.
How do I experience World Without Oil?
There are two ways to live the WWO experience. One: enter the WWO Live Event Archive, using a link to one of the weeks. To go chronologically through the archive, enter at Week 1; to see the archive at the end, with all material available to you, enter at Week 32. NOTE: we’ve previewed material in the archive, to make it as kid-friendly as possible. Two: search the Internet for the tag “worldwithoutoil” or phrase “world without oil”, using your favorite search method.Thoughts:
