Authoring tools, communities, and contexts

Our research effort explores the progression from authoring tools to authoring communities to authoring contexts. Cocoa is an authoring tool for kids to create simulated worlds and interactive games. However, a tool in isolation cannot tell its users if what they want to create already exists. Users need authoring communities as well as authoring tools. The Educational Object Economy (EOE) is an authoring community that can help improve sharing and reuse of simulation components, as well as reduce duplicate development efforts. However, efficient production of simulations that are experienced "out of context" may often be less useful than simulations experienced in context. WorldBoard is a vision of "putting information in its place" or associating information objects with places where they'll be most useful. For example, a simulation of the physics of curve balls could be associated with baseball parks. Authoring a simulation in a contextual useful manner is an open research problem.