Inspiration 5.0 Released
Just a note to say thanks to all the educators on this list who took the time to download the beta version of Inspiration 5.0 Education Edition & send us comments. You were all very helpful ---now we've the best product possible!
The commercial version of Inspiration 5.0 Education Edition was released on Friday, and now can be purchased directly from us or from an education reseller. And by the way - if you didn't download the beta for fear of bugs, etc., there is a safe demo version of Inspiration 5.0 on our site now:
http://www.inspiration.com
Here's (a shortened version of) the press release explaining everything:
Inspiration Software, Inc. Releases Visual Learning Tool Enhanced for Education
Inspiration Software, Inc. is pleased to announce the release of the first education-focused version of their flagship product, Inspiration(R). The Inspiration 5.0 Education Edition applies Software's award-winning visual learning technology to the K-12 education market.
Inspiration 5.0 Education Edition is a powerful visual learning tool that inspires students to organize their thinking. Students use InspirationUs Diagram view to dynamically create and modify concept maps, webs and other graphical organizers. With its easy-to-use interface, students focus on their ideas, not the drawing process. The integrated Outline view enables students to quickly prioritize and rearrange ideas, helping them create clear, concise writing.
"The new version responds to the current demand in education for concept mapping, webbing and outlining software," said InspirationVice President of Marketing Mona Westhaver. "As visual learning techniques become standard in schools, teachers recognize the advantages of quickly creating and modifying graphical organizers on a computer P especially for students."
InspirationUs visual learning methodologies are being incorporated
into the English, history and science curriculum in several states,
from Texas to Washington.
Visual Interface Makes Inspiration Easy for Students to Use
Visual toolbars in both the Diagram and Outline views make all major Inspiration functions immediately available, so the software is very easy for students to learn and use. By scrolling through the floating symbol palette, students can choose just the right symbol to convey their ideas. Inspiration 5.0 Education Edition contains over 500 symbols shapes, including representations of holiday themes, seasons, animals, transportation, sports and much more.
"The toolbars and the symbol palette make Inspiration P a program kids use for visual learning P even more visual and easy to use," said Florida high school teacher David Gottlieb.
Inspiration Software, Inc. is a privately held corporation that focuses on the development and support of visual thinking technology in the education and business markets.
-----
Inspiration Software URL: http://www.inspiration.com
Contact: Jennifer Keiser, tel. (503) 297-3004 x 15,
email jkeiser@inspiration.com
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 1997
From: Thin choy Tang <ttang@mail.sdsu.edu>
To: k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu
Subject: Practical training
Greetings to all,
I am looking for a practical training position in the field of
ST/SD. Any schools out there interested?
I just completed my M.A.in Educational Technology from San Diego
State University. I am particularly interested in how we can assist
students to enhance learning.
Please contact me through email and we can disucss further on
this.
Best regards
Thin-Choy
Date: Fri, 13 Jun
To: k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu (list of participants)
From: jforestr@MIT.EDU (Jay W. Forrester)
Subject: Skill levels in systems dynamics
The following email was written in response to messages in the system dyanmics discussion group. It may be of interest to the K-12 people.
------------------------
REPLY to: Differential equations (SD0910) From:Bill Harris
>Some on this list seem to have argued in favor of SD being
practiced only after serious study in a
>university program (at the graduate level?) with the opportunity
for the prospective SD person to receive
>feedback on their modeling efforts. I can see the benefits
of such study. Some in the SD community
>(vendors, perhaps?) seem to suggest the "democratic notion"
that SD can be done relatively easily by
>using today's tools and the admittedly good manuals they provide.
------------
I often liken system dynamics to the profession of medicine. There is a continuum of skills from a person having attended a two-hour first-aid course to one who has the skill to do a heart transplant. The issue is not so much the level of skill as the recognition of the skill one has and the willingness to work within the boundaries of that skill level, even while increasing the skill. My major concern here is with those who attend a rather superficial three-day "systems thinking" conference and then propose they are ready to be consultants on major corporate system dynamics challenges.
---------------
>How concerned are you about the work someone does who is working
through the Road Maps and
>using SD in a practical sense? What risks do you see in the
conclusions they may be drawing which they
>should take special pains to avoid? Must those risks be ameliorated
through undergraduate or graduate
>courses, or is there another way?
-------------------
System dynamics skill should be considered in the context of skills based on mental models alone because today's decisions come almost exclusively from mental models. Is system dynamics modeling (at any level of skill) in danger of making the decisions based only on mental models worse? I doubt it. The thought that goes into making even a poor system dynamics model will probably sharpen up the mental models. If the mental models that will otherwise be used are so bad that they can not benefit by some modeling, they probably can not be made worse even by very unskilled SD modeling.
Having said that, it is important to keep in mind that small increments of improved thinking via elementary modeling will fail to achieve the factor of ten or a hundred in improved outcomes that might result from the best modeling practice. Going back to medicine, system dynamics is probably now in about the state of development that medicine was a century ago. So, do the best we can today, don't think it is the ultimate, and keep the door open to learning in all ways that are possible.
-------------
>I recognize I wouldn't presume to teach myself a skill such
as playing a musical instrument, for example,
>without a private teacher unless it were purely for fun...
These may be primarily characteristics of
>physical activities, though.
---------------
No, not just physical activities. An engineer is not prepared
for the most demanding work in the field on graduating from college.
Practice, apprenticeship, and experience are necessary. Likewise
in system dynamics.
Jay W. Forrester
Professor of Management, Emeritus
and Senior Lecturer, Sloan School
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Room E60-389
Cambridge, MA 02139
tel: 617-253-1571
fax: 617-252-1998
email: jforestr@mit.edu
Home office:
tel: 508-369-9372
fax: 508-369-9077
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 97
To: system-dynamics@world.std.com,
k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu (list of participants)
From: jforestr@MIT.EDU (Jay W. Forrester)
Subject: Re: Principles of Psychohistory
Cc: Ctrost@aol.com (Chris Trost)
Perhaps a diversion and a bit of history will be of interest to
the system dynamics and K-12 discussion groups, even if it does
nothing to promote the frontier of system dynamics. I received
the following email from Chris Trost, Ctrost@aol.com, referring
to his two system dynamics subjects at MIT:
>After completing 15.874 & 15.875 this past year I was
struck by the similar concepts found in Isaac
>Asimov's Foundation science fiction series. His last book,
"Forward the Foundation", details several
>principles of what he calls "psychohistory".
Trost's message reminded me of the "Week with Isaac Asimov" at The Institute of Man and Science, Rensselaerville, New York, July 27-31, 1975. About 75 people were attending. I was asked to speak one evening on systems dynamics and decided to base the description on Asimov's three laws of writing science fiction.
----------------------
The "Three Laws of Futurics" in Asimov's essay, "O Keen-Eyed Peerer into the Future," from the collection, "Of Matters Great and Small."
-----------------------
Quoting, with some editing, from my talk as given in the report
on that conference by Ellen Murphy, published by the Institute
on Man and Science:
"System dynamics has striking resemblances to the "three
laws of futurics" of science fiction. The first law says:
"What is happening will continue." The way people are
making decisions, the way in which they see their self-interest,
the way in which they respond to pressure are fundamental. Human
reactions have been pretty well standard through all of history
and they are likely to continue. There is a rationale for human
action. If you understand the rationale deeply enough, you can
count on its continuing.
"The next step in system dynamics modeling is to realize
that one has available all the information that is necessary as
implied by the second law: "Consider the obvious seriously."
Very few people do so. In our heads we have all the information
we need to understand the nature of social systems. Perhaps the
greatest fallacy in all social sciences is to ignore the second
law, believing we don't know enough about the structure of systems
to understand.
"Then comes the third law: "Consider the consequences."
The simulation process reveals the consequences of the knowledge
one has chosen and the structures one has set up. Different policies,
different laws, different attitudes and values change the course
of a system in the future. One picks knowledge that is available
and structures it to explain the baffling behavior we've been
seeing. We use simulation to examine alternative futures by adoption
of different policies.
"System dynamics modeling it akin to the science fiction process discussed in this conference, with one very important addition. One can handle far greater complexity in a computer model than in written descriptive form. One runs through the three laws: assuming continuation of the present nature of psychology, considering the obvious knowledge we have about social structure and policies, and determining the consequences through computer simulation."
------------------------------
When I finished, the chairman asked for reaction from Asimov who
sat in surprised silence. My comment to the audience was, "This
is the first time you have seen Isaac with nothng to say."
Jay W. Forrester
Professor of Management, Emeritus
and Senior Lecturer, Sloan School
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Room E60-389
Cambridge, MA 02139
tel: 617-253-1571
fax: 617-252-1998
email: jforestr@mit.edu
Home office:
tel: 508-369-9372
fax: 508-369-9077
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997
From: Edwin Brenegar III <brenegar@bulldog.unca.edu>
Subject: Re: Skill levels in systems dynamics
To: "Jay W. Forrester" <jforestr@MIT.EDU>
Cc: list of participants <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
To: Prof.Forrester, I find the discussion on skill levels a rather interesting one. SD has a dilemma on its hands. That dillemma is that the success of SD will be the result of non-professionals using it, applying it and succeeding with it at lower levels of effectiveness, than the highly trained professional. I am one of those novices who recognizes that SD is a powerful tool for understanding organizations. It is not possible for me to gain the training necessary to utilize it at the level of someone who has graduate level training.
So what is the SD community going to do? Because it is a powerful tool, people will use it, abuse it and dilute it because they are not sufficiently trained. While on the one hand, Senge has done your community a favor by presenting its value to the world, he also has unleased it from your control, so to speak. The most important thing you can do is distinguish between what a lay-person can do with SD and what a trained professional can, and design a methodology specifically for the lay-person. I look at the marvelous simulators, wondering how to use them in my work. And frankly, they are not useful, because of their complexity.
Yes, you may be where medicine was 100 years ago. It is also true that people practice their own medicine on themselves everyday through assessment of their pains, feelings and intuitions. They make non-professional, yet experienced, uninformed judgements. And the medical profession's only recourse is to continually fill the media with reports about medical developments aimed at accurately informing lay-people about their health. The SD community will have to do this as well. I joined this list for that specific reason. I'm continually learning about the value of SD, but not about how to use it. And my only recourse may be one of those three day workshops.
Thank you for your addressing an issue of real importance.
Ed Brenegar
Leadership Resources
brenegar@circle.net
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 97
To: <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>, <system-dynamics@world.std.com>,
<jforestr@MIT.EDU>
Cc: <Ctrost@aol.com>
From: "fred nickols" <fnickols@ets.org>
Subject: Re: Principles of Psychohistory
Thanks to Jay Forrester for the marvelous post regarding psychohistory
Being a fan of Asimov's and a reader of the Foundation Trilogy
many, many, many years ago, I had noted--and doubtless been influenced
by--but long since shoved from conscious memory the notion of
psychohistory (but, oddly, the name of Harry Selden stays there
for some reason). The Three Laws of Futurics are new to me in
codified form, but they are very consistent with what I believe.
Thanks, Jay.
Fred Nickols
36-5077
09-C
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997
From: George Richardson <gr383@cnsvax.albany.edu>
Subject: Re: Practical training
To: Thin choy Tang <ttang@mail.sdsu.edu>
Cc: k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu
There is a web site at MIT that contains a very thorough listing
of places around the world where one can receive system dynamics
training. (I would assume all of it is "practical,"
or why would we be doing it?) I can't recall the web address but
Nan Lux (nlux@mit.edu) would know it.
...GPR
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
George P. Richardson G.P.Richardson@Albany.edu
Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy Phone: 518-442-3859
University at Albany - SUNY, Albany, NY 12222 Fax: 518-442-3398
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997
From: Mary Lind & Daud Mahmud <ML-DBMahmud@postoffice.worldnet.att.net>
To: Edwin Brenegar III <brenegar@bulldog.unca.edu>
Cc: "Jay W. Forrester" <jforestr@MIT.EDU>, list
of participants <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Skill levels in systems dynamics
(responding to the Brenegar message above of July 16, 1997..)
To: Professor Forrestor, Ed Brenegar
I found the exchange between the two of you most valuable. I agree with Ed Brenegar's comments. I want to share my experience with Systems Dynamics (SD).
My exposure to SD started 3 years ago with the attendance of Pegasus's "Systems Thinking" Conference. I have now attended 2 Pegasus conferences, 1 SD in Education conference, 3 ST/SD workshops, read some of the Road Maps materials and done some small Stella models. I have developed a passion for SD but my learning is very slow because of the time that I need to spend at work and with family and also the difficulty of learning something new. (By the way I do have a MS in computer science from 20 years ago). My goals with SD are to personally bring it to my 3 children's lives (all under 6 years of age) and also personally build (with some help) a SD model based upon my 11 eleven years of well recognized leadership experience in software customer service. I am wondering if these are resonable goals to have without a more rigorous academic background in SD.
I would like to replicate a learning process (with SD) that I started 7 years ago with Dr. Deming's "Quality" work. I went to some "Quality" workshops, read a lot, used Quality consultant's selectively and was foolish/brave enough to lead "Quality" programs in the organization that I managed. After some resonable amount of trial and error the organization showed considerable improvement. I have since lead other organizations that I manage with a small amount of assistnace from "Quality" Consultants to again considerable improvements. My desire is to do the same in SD, if possible.
The recipe I would like to follow is to increase my time commitment to learning SD including selectively teaming up 1 on 1 with a SD professional in my local area (hopefully inexpensively). I am wondering though if my goals are resonable considering that I will not be able to invest 1 year (or 2, 3 or 4 years) learning Systems Dynamics.
Professor Forrestor, I am very much interested in your comments
(again?).
Best Regards
Daud Mahmud
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997
To: k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu
From: Ed Gallaher <gallaher@teleport.com>
Subject: Re: Skill levels in systems dynamics
Re recent comments on skill levels in SD, and how to bring one's self gradually up to speed, or to ever-increasing levels of expertise, as described by JWF:
To Prof. Forrester, Edwin Brenegar III, Daud Mahmud above:
I would like to offer an adjunct solution that may evolve in the foreseeable future.
We have conducted SyM Bowlfor high school students over the past two years. Both years went great, but in 97 we took advantage of our previous experience and it went much better. We used 6 judges, and they each wrote out comments defining the strengths and weaknesses of each of 20 projects. It is quite likely that we will see a SyM Bowl in New England in addition to Portland OR in 98, and we have set up a non-profit foundation to facilitate the expansion throughout the U.S. if all goes as planned. This will take some time, but is actually proceeding faster than we expected.
In addition to serving as a competition for H.S. students, we envision Sym Bowl serving as a link to the community. Each student team will be expected to find two outside advisors from the community. We would hope these advisors become engaged enough to attend SyM Bowl. We will also be happy to recruit volunteers to help with the organization of SyM Bowl within each community. This will begin to provide a focus group of interested individuals. At the very least, the volunteer will be able to rub shoulders with the judges, teachers, and students. It would be tremendously valuable if someone with beginning or intermediate SD skills had someone to talk to, organize informal workshops, and so on.
Unfinished business: We have developed a set of guidelines for
the teachers and students to use in the preparation of their projects.
We feel this can serve as an excellent guide for the beginner.
However, we need to have this document reviewed in detail by a
variety of SD academics, practitioners, and teachers, before we
make this claim to the whole world. When this has been accomplished,
then the beginner will be able to build his or her own models
and documents, and then attend several successive SyM Bowls and
compare one's own work with the growing sophistication exhibited
by the H.S. student community.
Ed Gallaher
President, SyM Bowl Foundation
Assoc. Professor, Physiology/Pharmacology
and Behavioral Neuroscience
Oregon Health Sciences University
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997
To: k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu
From: bszulanski@overnet.com.ar (Fabian Szulanski)
Subject: Asking for some info
Dear colleagues,
I'd like to get references about existing pieces of research in math about didactics of calculus, especially Integration, and/or research in system dynamics about the same issue. I'd appreciate any reference, as I'm planning to use those references in my master in SD thesis work.
Thank you in advance.
Fabian Szulanski
MPhil in SD student
University of Bergen, Norway
bszulanski@overnet.com.ar (until end of June)
fabians@ifi.uib.no
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997
To: k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu
From: Lees Stuntz <stuntzln@tiac.net>
Subject: Could you point me in some direction?
Dear K-12 list,
Does anyone know of any curricula with geometry? I don't have any. If you are able to help him- could you please cc me on your reply so that I will know about the source??
Thanks, Lees
>From: TLittle128@aol.com
>To: stuntzln@tiac.net
>Subject: Could you point me in some direction?
>
> My name is Michael Littlefield, and I am a math teacher in
San Antonio. This summer I bravely signed
>up to teach high school geometry in summer school. I have
experimented with systems training in an
>Algebra 1 class and was able to introduce it with some success.
This summer, I would like to integrate
>systems thinking with geometry (a match made in heaven.) Do
you know of any work that has been done
>involving the two fields? Any help would be wonderful.
>Thank you for your time
Lees N. Stuntz Phone- 508-287-0070
1 Keefe Road Fax- 508-287-0080
Acton, MA 01720 e-mail- stuntzln@tiac.net
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 1997
From: George Richardson <gr383@cnsvax.albany.edu>
Subject: Re: Asking for some info
To: Fabian Szulanski <bszulanski@overnet.com.ar>
Cc: k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu
I'm not sure why Fabian wants to put calculus pedagogy in his thesis, but here's a partial answer to his enormous question:
My favorite book on the teaching of calculus is Otto Toeplitz's "The Calculus: A Genetic Approach." Toeplitz was a first-rate mathematician who traces in this little paperback the origin of the ideas and techniques of calculus. Ideal for those of us who think that good pedagogy for tough ideas ought to pay some attention to the historical development.
My favorite text in calculus was Sherman Stein's revolutionary "Calculus in the First Three Dimensions," in which Stein, like Toeplitz (and Jay Forrester) begins with integration, not differentiation.
Then there is a major calculus teaching revision project ongoing
in United States Universities. I have been out of this field long
enough to not know any details, and can only urge Fabian to consult
the American Mathematics Monthly, the Math. Teacher, and other
sources of current discourse on math pedagody.
...GPR
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
George P. Richardson G.P.Richardson@Albany.edu
Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy Phone: 518-442-3859
University at Albany - SUNY, Albany, NY 12222 Fax: 518-442-3398
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997
From: George Richardson <gr383@cnsvax.albany.edu>
Subject: Re: Asking for some info
To: Fabian Szulanski <bszulanski@overnet.com.ar>
Cc: k-12 listserve <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
On Mon, 23 Jun 1997, Fabian Szulanski wrote:
> Dear Prof Richardson,
> Thank you for your always useful insights. The idea of my
thesis is to perform an experiment to prove
>that system dynamics can improve calculus didactics, especially
the teaching of integration. It is well
>known among the SD community how important it is to improve
the ability to integrate. The expected
>contribution (if it is proved) will be for SD, and from the
SD field to the math didactics field.
While I support the idea that using simulation software can improve the teaching of calculus and have used it that way for years, we should note that lots of people have gone this route. It's not "system dynamics" that is important (since system dynamics involves a world view, feedback loops, the endogenous point of view, and so on, as well as simulation). It is the use of a machine to approximate definite integrals as accumulation processes.
About ten years ago there was a little paperback book keyed to a number of common U.S. first-year calculus texts, which used tiny BASIC programs to support the teaching of calculus ideas. It was great and did the job better than STELLA could, in my judgment, because BASIC is so much more flexible than STELLA and the programs are "explicit" and written in essentially readable English. The history of efforts like these goes back a long way -- may have had its start at Dartmouth, where BASIC was invented -- Kemeny's "True BASIC" came out with lots of modules with math teaching supports (still does, I believe).
I do not believe that the experiments in the U.S. using STELLA/iThink
or other system dynamics software to enhance the teaching of mathematics
have done a serious comparison of the efficacy of canned simulation
software like STELLA and a general purpose simple programing language
like BASIC. Showing that STELLA helps does not show what is really
helping -- I suspect it is vivid numerical experience, not STELLA
and certainly not "system dynamics."
...GPR
George P. Richardson
University at Albany
From: "Hasan Zareei" <ZAREEI_H@NET1CS.modares.ac.ir>
To: acakra@ibm.net
Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997
Subject: Re: Need Information
Reply-To: zareei_h@net1cs.modares.ac.ir
Cc: k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu
you wrote in date Fri, 27 Jun 1997
Dear Colleagues
>Today, I am doing a research about policy analysis in Indonesia
Chemical Industry using system
>dynamics methodology, for my undegraduate thesis. I would
be pleased if any of you could give me
>information about any reference that related with my research
subject.
>
>Thank you for your attention and I am looking forward to hearing
from you soon.
sincerely,
Andi Cakravastia
Laboratory of Industrial System Planning and Optimation
Department of Industrial Engineering
Bandung Institute of Technology, Indonesia
e-mail : acakra@ibm.net
---------------------------------------------------------
Dear Andi,
There are many information and site for your work such as ftp
site WWW.STD.COM and SYSDYN.MIT.EDU
I also doing a research about "University and Industrial
cooperation - a system analysis. I will be grateful if you send
any good suggest.
Hasan Zarei University of TMU.
Best Wishes and be succeded.
From: rgalan@MIT.EDU
To: k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu
Subject: NEW mailing list archives
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997
The K-12sd e-mail archives are finally on the web. You can find them on the MIT SDEP website at:
http://sysdyn.mit.edu/k-12sd-email-list/archive/home.html
--Ricardo Galan
Webmaster
System Dynamics in Education Project