Roy Pea

1. Roy Pea

2. Problems • Revolutionary potentials of LT but... • Two decades of strong academic R&D on learning technologies has had minimal influences on school practices or industry developments • Fragmented field of LT researchers—uncoordinated critical mass, differential strengths rarely combined • Fragmentation of LT practitioner craft wisdom—uncoordinated insights rarely shared • In sum: weak coupling of research and practice

3. A distributed center for tackling these problems • Seed funding from National Science Foundation ($1.5 mil@year) • An open structure for harvesting knowledge and leveraging efforts of diverse LT R&D • Working on “theme teams” in high-priority areas • Weaving the web—Creating “virtual critical mass” for a distributed learning organization

4. The hub of founding members Concord Consortium

5. CILT Leadership Council John Bransford Marcia Linn Roy Pea Bob Tinker Barbara Means

6. Why our four institutions? • Long-term common theoretical concerns about learning and its augmentation with technology • Robust history of collaboration • Devoted to using collaboration and virtual learning community tools for our work, and to engage others to advance the field as a whole • Complementarity of strengths • Geographical distribution (CA, TN, MA) • Disciplinary emphases, tool-building, research and evaluation expertise, school partnerships • University plus non-profit offers greater flexibility for Industry Program support

7. Perspective: innovative technologies for learning • New representational systems provide cognitive power and have social consequences (e.g., writing, algebra, graphing, computer models) • “Distributed intelligence” in human-technology systems. Design of tools embodying human activity support. • “Cognitive” technologies: to see, design, build, what’s more difficult, error-prone, impossible without them. • “Social” technologies: Enable collective activity such as collaborations that would be more difficult without them. • Enabling new problems to be posed, not only solved • Leads to re-structuring of what it means to know and understand in a discipline

8. CILT Mission • To catalyze the development and implementation of important, technology-enabled solutions to critical problems in K-14 science, mathematics, engineering, and technology learning

9. CILT Overview • National context • NSF’s KDI initiative and the LIS program that funds CILT • How our work is organized • How we are doing distributed R&D theme teams • How we could use your help

10. CILT in National Context • President Clinton’s “4 pillars”—computers, connectivity, teacher prep, hi-quality learning tools and resources (1996) • 1997 PCAST Report to the President, follow-on plans • FCC “E-Rate” discounts worth billions over next 4 years; DOE’s Technology Literacy Challenge Fund ($200 Mil in 97-98) • National Science Foundation’s learning and technology initiatives

11. President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) • Panel on Educational Technology: Report to the President on the Use of Technology to Strengthen K-12 Education in the United States (March 1997) • Near-release of implementation plan

12. NSF’s KDI announced in February 98(Knowledge & Distributed Intelligence) • “NSF-wide effort that draws on past advances made in networking, supercomputing, and learning and intelligent systems” (FY98) • “The coming age is perhaps best described as an era of ‘knowledge and distributed intelligence’ -- an era in which knowledge is available to anyone, located anywhere, at any time, and an era in which power, information, and control move away from centralized systems to the individual.” (NSF Director, Neal Lane) • Includes the LIS Program (Learning and Intelligent Systems) which funds CILT

13. NSF’s LIS Program seeks... • “Centers for Collaborative Research on Learning Technologies (CRLT) to..... • undertake larger collaborative projects • act as a technology transfer mechanism • train new researchers • serve as an evaluation center for learning technology research”

14. LIS Research... • “is intended to lead to advances in science and engineering that can foster rapid and radical (as opposed to incremental) growth in the ability to understand and support learning”

15. CILT aims to provide a socio-technical infrastructure for: • Identification of high-potential areas for collaborative development of learning technology R&D • Greater aggregation of ideas across disciplines, projects, sectors, and funders • Rapid, flexible funding of promising learning technology ideas • On-line interactions that create content while promoting communication forums • Training of multidisciplinary professionals for this field

16. CILT as a Knowledge Network The vision is a coordinated web of organizations, individuals, industries, schools, foundations, government agencies and labs devoted to the production, sharing and use of new knowledge about how learning technologies can dramatically improve the processes and outcomes of learning and teaching.

17. CILT as a Knowledge Network • An infrastructure for sharing what’s being learned and fostering partnership projects • A communication forum to advance work, debate directions, invite practitioners to share experiences • A vehicle for bringing researchers, practitioners, and industry into a virtual space together • Experimentation in user-profiling and defining communities of interest • Establishing multi-organizational collaboratories and testbeds for LT R&D

19. “Knowledge applied to tasks that are new and different is INNOVATION” (Drucker, 1992) • CILT provide an “open” support system to foster innovation across the learning technologies R&D field • Process of innovation: Inclusive, coordinated and focused on breakthrough opportunities • We seek multiple types of innovation • Fusion of technological opportunity, developments in the sciences of learning • Creativity from community-based synergies • Refinement of LT projects by “critical friends”

20. Different flavors of LT R&D • Technology-driven proof of concept • User-centered proof of concept, small user studies • Design experiments: small-scale reform work in a few classrooms, real teachers, iterative methods • Testbeds of diverse schools, teachers and learners for medium-scale iterative development of LT innovations • Large-scale program evaluation studies of LT implementations (NIH model, PCAST ‘push’)

21. How CILT is organized • Four R&D Theme Teams • Core Center functions • Industry Alliance Program • Communications Program for Knowledge Networking • Postdoctoral Program • School Partner and Affiliates Program • Evaluation Program • Advisory Board

22. Initial CILT Theme Teams

23. How do CILT Theme Teams work? • Identify and recruit team members • Conduct partnership “breeding” workshops • Community discussions on priorities • Select prototype projects and technologies with breakthrough opportunities • Foster widespread research and communication • Reflect on progress, re-consider directions • Provide context for training new professionals

24. Marcia Linn Andy diSessa Nancy Songer January 1998, U. California, Berkeley. 80 members, nearly 40 institutions, 45 projects

25. John Bransford Barbara Means February 1998: Vanderbilt University. 75 members, 30 institutions, 25 projects

26. Bob Tinker Bob Brodersen March 1998: SRI International 100+ members, 40 institutions, 60+ projects

27. Roy Pea Jeremy Roschelle May 1998: SRI International 125 members, 50 institutions, 60 projects

28. CILT Postdoctoral Fellows1998-2000 Sean Brophy Sherry Hsi Eric Baumgarten …more to come

29. Theme Team R&D funding • Provides “seed” resources (~$250K per team) for pilot partnership projects • CILT Partnership Projects will leverage insights from ongoing LT research from a large proportion of funded work • CILT projects may lead to new grants, and/or be co-funded by industry, or re-direct ongoing grants

30. 1998 CILT Project Examples • Visualizing the Amazonian Rain Forest • Virtual Reality Solar System • White paper: Cognitively Informed Learning Tools for Inquiry Learning Environments • State of the art on technology and assessment (NEA co-funded monograph) • Connecting TIMSS, NCTM Standards and Math ILEs • Sonic Ranger application for the 3COM PalmPilot • Haptic devices for learning math and science

31. 1998 CILT Project Examples • Concepts and Scenarios for “Datagotchis” • Requirements for a Common Framework for Collaborative Learning Community Tools • “Knowledge Mining” on technology and education reform • Consortium for Teacher Professional Development using TLC Supports • GOAT: Learning Technologies Knowledge Network

32. Criteria for CILT projects • Idea potential • Leverage funding • Interdisciplinary collaboration and multiple institutions • Rapid delivery—developing concepts, toolkits, environments others can use in under a year • Prospects for successful integration into or impact on K-14 curricula • Plan for testing, assessment

33. Marcia Linn Andy diSessa Nancy Songer January 1998, U. California, Berkeley. 80 members, nearly 40 institutions, 45 projects

34. John Bransford Barbara Means February 1998: Vanderbilt University. 75 members, 30 institutions, 25 projects

35. Bob Tinker Bob Brodersen March 1998: SRI International 100+ members, 40 institutions, 60+ projects

36. Roy Pea Jeremy Roschelle May 1998: SRI International 125 members, 50 institutions, 60 projects

37. CILT activities are unearthing a huge need to form a LT knowledge network • ... to create web-based communities of interest that can grow around strategic communication objectives, with: • Web-based access to socially-filtered content • Personalized content views • User context-making functions: can add, comment, rate • Document and topic-based threaded discussions • Notification services for participants based on profiles • Powerful search for relevant resources • User-controllable security model • Working with dka to explore how their knowledge-management tools may meet these needs

38. LT knowledge network areas • CILT Theme Teams • People by Profile • Research Labs • Research Projects • Project Funding Sources • Research Scholarship (reports, books, journals, societies, conferences) • LT Graduate Programs, Syllabi • LT Innovating Schools • LT Software, Services and Other Resources • LT Companies • LT in the News • LT Glossary of Technical Terms and Acronyms

39. Please come to C I L T. O R G REGISTER WITH US AND WE WILL BRING YOU INTO THIS CONVERSATION!

40. Inter-Theme Team Synergies: Toward a “Grand Challenge” unifying focus • Middle school level • Modeling and interactive visualization-rich activities integrating mathematics and science • Strong assessment framework linked to standards • Pedagogy—from problem-based learning to open project-based learning • Field-based inquiry involving ubiquitous computing • Collaborative learning and virtual learning community involvement • Teacher development support materials, activities

41. Building a vibrant Industry Alliance Program will be critical to success • Aim: over 100 industry partners from diverse sectors • Collaborate in design and development of prototypes using industry tools and talent • Contribute to technology transfer for CILT prototypes • Enable schools to participate more fully in innovative research (help with infrastructure, teacher support) • Amplify influence of CILT work—broad-scale dissemination and marketing help • Help academic community better understand industry needs in collaborative research

42. What does “success” look like? • Growing participation in the CILT knowledge network and demand for its activities • Wide distribution of knowledge about creating and using LTs to CILT stakeholder communities • Increased interaction and dialogue between these target communities and CILT • Broad-scale implementation of these findings and products in K-14 classrooms and other learning settings

43. Please join us at CILT.ORG The art of growing on-line community requires distributed leadership!

44. THANKS!