Category Archives: Current News

School Libraries as Learning Labs

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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].

How Can We Think About Social Media and Education Policy?

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The education world is scrambling to catch up with the implications of today’s ubiquitous, social media environment.  We’re familiar with stories about teacher firings and cyber-bullying.   The latest dustup has been the recent legislation in Missouri that forbids teachers from having any private interaction with students online.  This means no friend-connections on Facebook or private messages between students and teachers.  All interaction must occur publicly.  Of course, there’s been huge push-back and uproar to this shortsighted policy and many such controversies are sure to come in the education world as we deal with new media.  But how can we as education leaders think about these policy issues?

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Dissertation of the Year Award

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I’m happy to share that I recently received the PhD Dissertation of the Year award at my alma mater, University of Southern California (Rossier School of Education). The school was gracious enough to pay for my trip back to SoCal, where I attended the commencement ceremonies and received the award. My dissertation examined the use of social network sites by high school youths, and I’m excited to potentially share my work as it comes out in various venues in the near future.

Social Network Sites and Youth: Paper Published in JASIST

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I recently had a paper accepted and published in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (JASIST). The article appears in their Advances in Information Sciences series, and is a review of the critical questions that surround youths participation in social network sites. How do they use them? What are the hypothesized effects on youth relationships, psychological well-being, and learning? These are some of the issues I consider in the article. You can find the article here, or feel free to contact me and I would be happy to share the article with you.

RASA Research Grant

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I received a Research and Scholarship Award (RASA) from the University of Maryland this year. This seed grant will provide funds for me to conduct a study this coming summer on designing social interdependence mechanisms that may promote better collaborative learning in networked, online environments. I’m honored to receive the award and excited to conduct the study this summer!

SPARC Research Grant

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I’m happy to share that I received a SPARC grant from the University of Maryland, College Park (College of Education). This seed grant is geared towards early career faculty to conduct initial research studies and jumpstart their activities. My project will qualitatively examine the Facebook activity of high school youth to determine the types of learning and social behaviors that occur in this online community.