Dr. Brian Butler and I just had a workshop paper accepted to CSCW 2013, for the CSCW and Education Workshop. The paper forwards an ecological perspective to studying the creation and implementation of open education.
I think as more online, open education platforms become the norm, these questions – of how do learning communities get created, implemented, and sustained over time? – will become more important to understand. Check out a draft of the paper here: [PDF]
My paper with Brian Butler and student Cindy Weng was accepted to HICSS 2013 in the Learning Analytics and Networked Learning track. In the paper, we examine log data from an open MOOC platform, the Peer 2 Peer University, to examine what factors are related to increased participation in this open education setting. Check out the paper here: :LINK
My paper on youth perspectives on remix behavior was given the Best Information Behavior Paper Award at ASIS&T 2012. The paper was authored with Mega Subramaniam, Allison Druin, Ken Fleischmann and students Amanda Waugh and Greg Walsh. Check out the paper here: LINK
Happy to announce that my paper with colleagues, Mega Subramaniam, Allison Druin, Ken Fleischmann and students Amanda Waugh and Greg Walsh was accepted to ASIS&T 2012. Check out the paper here: LINK
I’ll be at CHI 2012 in Austin, TX this week!
Happy to report that our work with the Sci-dentity project [link] will be presented at the Human Computer Interaction Lab (HCIL) Symposium in May, and the American Library Association annual conference in June.
I’ve been recently asked to serve on the Technology Committee of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). I’ll serve from 2012 – 2015. I’m looking forward to serving and meeting new colleagues!
A while back when I was a graduate student I read a great blog post by danah boyd [link] about her ethnographic work with teenagers and social network sites. She highlighted her growing observations that Facebook and Myspace teens were quite segregated. Myspace was “ghetto” and Facebook was the higher class social network.
I was at the start of my own dissertation, and was motivated by her observations, so I conducted a survey study of over 700 high school teenagers to examine their social network choices in 2009. The academic article and findings are finally out in First Monday [link here].
My article offers further empirical evidence that significant divides did in fact exist between teenagers who adopt Myspace vs. Facebook. Divides exist across many factors: class (poorer kids were more likely to adopt Myspace over Facebook), race (ethnic minorities were more likely to adopt Myspace), relationships (interestingly Myspace teens were more connected to their offline relationships, while Facebook teens also built online relationships), and academic achievement (higher achievers were on Facebook).
Given these findings, I agree with boyd that there are significant implications for how we use social media tools with young people. Their choice of tools, and likely what they do in their online networks, are intimately related to issues of class, race, and identity. Such findings make me question what we might communicate to youths when we ask them to use certain platforms – what values, implied messages etc. – and also what we might lose by engaging only with particular platforms?
I’m happy to share some exciting recent news. First, an article I co-authored with colleagues (Dr. Subramaniam, Dr. Fleischmann, and Dr. Druin) here at the iSchool was just recently accepted to The Library Quarterly. In it, we outline a framework to think about how school library settings can be ideal places to promote science, technology, engineering, and math learning. We think there is particular promise to think about school libraries as hybrid spaces, where students can link their everyday interests to STEM ideas. We also see great promise in school librarians as technology-integrators and leaders for media-enhanced learning. [see publications]
Second, this work sets the stage for a recent NSF grant we received to explore how to use science-fiction based storytelling, social network sites, and school libraries to pique student interests in STEM and help them identify as potential scientists. We’re still getting things started, but I’m excited to share more as we go. At the moment, I’m quite inspired by Brian David Johnson’s idea of Science Fiction Prototyping. [more on the project page].
My NSF Cyberlearning grant was accepted! I will be exploring the use of social network sites with middle school students, to create an online community of science storytelling. Our goal is to explore how to increase young adolescents’ identification with science in their lives. Check out the projects page for more info.