The IdeaMagnets research team, Bodong Chen, Yu-Hui Chang and David Groos, presented their work in Virtual Knowledge Building Institute (KBSI) 2020.

KBSI 2020 (Theme 2 - Knowledge Building Analytics)
Title: Crisscrossing Information Spaces with the IdeaMagnets Tool
Presentation Video and Paper                               

Situated in the tradition of Knowledge Building, this study presents the design of IdeaMagnets, a new tool designed bridge Knowledge Forum, a popular knowledge-building environment, with the open web through web annotation. With the IdeaMagnets tool, we conducted a four-week classroom intervention in five science class in an urban high school in the United States. By constructing a qualitative case study, we investigated how students connected public discourse on the Green New Deal and their classroom discourse about energy. Findings suggested that with IdeaMagnets students developed a culture of engaging with public sources to advance their knowledge goals. They were mindful of personal, small-group, and collective knowledge goals when annotating public sources, and they incorporated web annotations made by members of the class when improving ideas in Knowledge Forum. The IdeaMagnets tool design and its emphasis on openness have strong implications for the design of future knowledge-building environments.

This research is funded through NSF CRII/Cyberlearning program (Award # 1657009). Kudos to the IdeaMagnets Project Team (Bodong Chen, Yu-Hui Chang, Fan Ouyang, David Groos, Jennifer Alton, Wenjing Chen, William Batu, Jonathan Shoberg, Dipesh Reen) and the Minneapolis Public Schools to make this research possible.

ideaMagnet