Presented at Vanderbilt

I had the wonderful opportunity to present a forthcoming book chapter at Vanderbilt this week. The book is called Convergence, and brought together education scholars across a variety of topics, as we reflect on the 50th anniversary of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and Higher Education Act.

My student, Bradley Quarles and I were invited to contribute a chapter on the past 50 years of technology development in our education system. It was a wonderful experience, and look out for the book due in Spring 2016 from Harvard Education Press.

Convergence-2015

Invited talk at Affinity Spaces & STEM Learning Workshop

I’ll be giving an invited talk at a workshop in Madison, WI, on July 6, 2015 (before the Games, Learning, and Society conference). The talk will be for a group of scholars who are convening a future research agenda about affinity spaces and STEM learning.

I’ll be talking about my work in the Sci-Dentity, Alternate Reality Games, and Science Everywhere projects where we are working to understand how young people engage with new media and learning, and develop identity through these activities.

Legislative Briefing: K-12 Online Education in MD

I’m doing my first briefing to the Maryland state legislature (General Assembly) on Feb 4. I’ll be briefing state policymakers on lessons learned in my research on K-12 online education and learning technologies, and setting policy to better implement these options in the coming years. I’m excited to be able to translate some of the work I’m currently doing to hopefully impact how policymakers think about this topic.

Tech_Briefing_Announcement_2

Maryland at ICLS 2014

I’m excited to attend my first ICLS next week in Boulder, CO. UMD will have a great presence this year, and 2 best paper nominations. Come join us!

Wed, 6/25/14

1:15-2:45pm
The Role of Identity Development Within Tensions in Ownership of Science Learning
*Nominated for Best Student Paper*
Jason Yip, Tamara Clegg, June Ahn, Elizabeth Bonsignore, Michael Gubbels, Emily Rhodes, Becky Lewittes

3:00-4:30pm
“I want to be a Game Designer or Scientist”: Connected Learning and Developing Identities with Urban, African-American Youth
*Nominated for Best Paper*
June Ahn, Mega Subramaniam, Elizabeth Bonsignore, Anthony Pellicone, Amanda Waugh, Jason Yip

The Nature of Student Thinking and Its Implications for the Use of Learning Progressions to Inform Classroom Instruction
Alicia Alonzo, Andrew Elby

Thursday, 6/26/14

1:00-2:30pm

SYMPOSIUM: Differing Notions Of Responsive Teaching Across Mathematics And Science: Does The Discipline Matter?
Andrew Elby (chair), Jennifer Richards, Janet Walkoe, Ayush Gupta, Rosemary Russ, Melissa Luna, Amy Robertson, Janet Coffey, Ann Edwards, Miriam Sherin, Beth van Es (discussant)

2:45-4:15pm
Capturing Personal and Social Science: Technology for Integrating the Building Blocks of Disposition
Tamara Clegg, Elizabeth Bonsignore, June Ahn, Jason Yip, Daniel Pauwe, Michael Gubbels, Becky Lewittes, Emily Rhodes

4:45-6:15pm
Characterizing a New Dimension of Change in Attending and Responding to the Substance of Student Thinking
Jennifer Richards, Andrew Elby, Ayush Gupta

 

Open Education Research!!

Happy to report on several milestones concerning my research on open education.

Our research group has a web presence! Check us out at the CASCI page, we’re the OCEL Group (Open Communities for Education and Learning)

Had a paper on the Peer 2 Peer University appear in the Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, special issue on MOOCs: http://jolt.merlot.org/vol9no2/ahn_0613.htm

Was invited to give a talk at the Canadian Institute of Distance Education Research (CIDER) at Athabasca University. I talked about new opportunities for research and design of open education. The recorded talk and slides are available here: http://cider.athabascau.ca/CIDERSessions/ahn2013/sessiondetails

Check out a very cool workshop I am co-organizing at CSCW 2013, Designing Futures for Peer 2 Peer Learning: http://p2pl.media.mit.edu/

Packed Spring Semester

I’ll be traveling a ton this semester (Spring 2013), presenting my research at various places, and I’d love to meet new colleagues or anyone doing related work! Please feel free to contact me if you’re interested in connecting.

Feb 13, 2013 – iConference
Experiencing Science in Informal Learning Environments – Talkes from the Field

Social Media Expo: Finalist for student-led project called SINQ – Social Media for Scientific INQuiry learning

Feb 23, 2013 – CSCW
Presenting a paper with Brian Butler on open learning environments at the CSCW and Education workshop.

April 8-12 – Learning Analytics and Knowledge
Presenting my paper about observing new media literacies from Facebook data using analytics [PDF].

April 27-May 1 – AERA
Designing Science Fiction and Online Community as Tools for STEM Literacy and Self Identity [I’ll post the paper soon].