While we should celebrate our success at evolving many vital aspects of the human-technology interactive experience, we question the scope of this progress. Step back with us for a moment. What really matters? Everyday life spans a wide range of emotions and experiences -- from improving productivity and efficiency to promoting wonderment and daydreaming. But our research and designs do not reflect this important life balance. The research we undertake and the applications we build employ technology primarily for improving tasks and solving problems. Our claim is that our successful future
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Eric PaulosTom JenkinsAugust JokiParul Vora
The use of the term virtual is commonly associated with the idea of an extension of reality. Similarly, the expression virtual museum is usually adopted to mean a process of duplication of a physical museum and its objects, enabled by information technologies. Therefore, virtual museum has become a useful synonym for multimedia products or Web sites capable of providing new and fresh experiences of a specific museum and its heritage. However, in order to understand and explore further opportunities, profound reflection is necessary. We need to question and investigate the contemporary role of
An IMLS (Institute of Museum and Library Services) National Leadership project with University of California Museum of Paleontology (lead), Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, Museum of the Earth and University of Kansas Natural History Museum to create a tree portal website with learning research, curriculum material and guides on how to effectively use and teach about the tree of life for teachers and museum professionals.
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University of California-BerkeleyTeresa MacDonaldRoy CaldwellAnna ThanukosLisa WhiteDavid HeiserRobert Ross
Open collaborative authoring systems such as Wikipedia are growing in use and impact. How well does this model work for the development of educational resources? In particular, can volunteers contribute materials of sufficient quality? Could they create resources that meet students’ specific learning needs and engage their personal characteristics? Our experiment explored these questions using a novel web-based tool for authoring worked examples. Participants were professional teachers (math and non-math) and amateurs. Participants were randomly assigned to the basic tool, or to an enhanced
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Turadg AleahmadVincent AlevanRobert Kraut
This white paper lays out an expanded vision for “public media 2.0” that places engaged publics at its core, showcasing innovative experiments from its “first two minutes,” and revealing related trends, stakeholders, and policies. Public media 2.0 may look and function differently, but it will share the same goals as the projects that preceded it: educating, informing, and mobilizing its users.
This report is intended to provide guidance for policy makers on the use of computer games for learning. It is a concise summary of the main debates around games and learning. It identifies significant ambiguities or evidential absences that should be considered in any serious attempt to understand the role of computer games in children's learning and recommends potential activities to address these absences.
This report is intended to provide guidance for policy-makers on the use of digital technologies to support learning in families. It draws on a research project conducted by Futurelab and funded by Becta on 'Learning in families with digital technologies'. It identifies significant gaps, challenges and opportunities for policy developments to support and enhance the outcomes of learning in families
This policy recommendations report is intended to provide guidance for policy-makers on maximizing the beneficial impact of digital technologies on adult informal learning. It provides a concise summary of the main challenges facing policy-makers, shows where there may be gaps in current policy, and highlights areas of concern and need in relation to adult informal learning and technology.
In October 2005, the National Science Foundation brought members of its nanoscale science and engineering education (NSEE) projects to Arlington, VA for a 2-day workshop to explore the status of on-going efforts and to forge collaborations at the national level that would facilitate future efforts. NSF currently funds NSEE projects through the Division of Elementary, Secondary, and Informal Education (ESIE), the Directorate for Engineering as part of the Nanoscale Science and Engineering Centers (NSEC), National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NNIN), the Network for Computational
The on-line information environment has changed dramatically since the earliest on-line systems emerged in the early 1960s. Growth has occurred both in the number of users of on-line information as well as in the number of on-line information resources and providers. The rate of growth in each of these areas increased exponentially with the availability of the public Internet and the World Wide Web. These foundational technological developments created an environment in which almost anyone can “publish” or function as an information provider and have virtually instantaneous access to massive
This paper details a long-term evolving effort to provide evaluation instruction designed to address specific information needs for selected target groups from a centralized location within a networked environment. Additionally, this paper examines a content design process that focuses on user-centered data-appropriate evaluation methods where the content of the instructional system is comprehensive, organized, and presented for use by library researchers and practitioners in a variety of library settings and situational contexts. Specific examples of web-based evaluation instructional systems
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TEAM MEMBERS:
John SneadCharles McClureJohn BertotPaul Jaeger
Based on the premise that one component of NASA's pre-college education program is intended to support and enact school reform, the Committee for the Evaluation and Review of NASA's Pre-College Education Program requested an analysis of how the NASA Explorer School (NES) Model aligns with other national models of school-wide improvement and reform. The purpose and focus of this paper is to summarize key elements of major school improvement and reform models as well as specific content reform models from the literature, and to analyze the extent to which there is alignment between these models