Realizing the power of CyberLearning to transform education will require vision, strategy, and an engaged, talented community. Activities are needed to energize the community, refine and sharpen the path forward, and provide a more active and ongoing forum for clarifying the big ideas and challenging questions. In response to this need, SRI International, together with the Lawrence Hall of Science and with key support from the National Geographic Society, will organize a set of activities to advance a shared vision of the future of learning, encompassing the systems, people, and technology dimensions mutually necessary for any scalable and lasting advances in education. The innovative format for these activities is inspired by the TED talks, Wikipedia, and social networking. As in TED, a small set of leading researchers will be selected to give very short, very high quality, stimulating talks. These CyberLearning Talks will be featured at a 1-day summit meeting in Washington, DC, streamed so that local cyberlearning research communities may participate at a distance, and posted on a website. As in Wikipedia, CyberLearning Pages will be created, each page featuring a synopsis of a big idea in CyberLearning and the relevant research challenges. The 1-day conference will be followed by a small 1-day workshop focusing on how to evaluate cyberlearning efforts, identify progress, and identify important new directions. Finally, to disseminate and stimulate conversation about both the video talks and Wikipedia entries, a presence for the community will be created on social networking sites. The target outcomes of the effort will be (i) a cyberlearning research community with participants from across the many current constituent communities, and fostered awareness and appreciation of the broad range of expertise and interests across that wider community; (ii) foundations for sustained discussion of big ideas, insights, and challenges to help this new community define a more engaged, crisper vision of its own future, (iii) a community resource that can become a site for interconnecting stakeholders in the CyberLearning community and supporting investigators in improving field-generated proposals, and (iv) an emerging sense of direction for CyberLearning among a wider audience of leaders. Such community building and awareness is expected to foster collaborations that will lead to innovative and research-grounded ways of using technology to transform education -- formal and informal and across a lifetime.
These reports were delivered on day three at the conclusion of the Citizen Science Toolkit Conference at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York on June 20-23, 2007. The reports summarize the discussions that took place in five separate breakout groups, which met periodically throughout the conference to focus on key Citizen Science themes and topics that emerged during conference presentations and plenary discussions.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Cornell Lab of OrnithologyCatherine McEverNolan DoeskenGeoff LeBaronSarah KirnRebecca JordanMaureen McConnell
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
This discussion was held during the final plenary session on day three of the Citizen Science Toolkit Conference at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York on June 20-23, 2007. Topics discussed include citizen science as a new field or discipline, the science role that citizen scientists play, next steps, issues to consider, suggestions, and developing (or not) a shared data infrastructure.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Cathy McEverCornell Lab of Ornithology
This poster was presented at the April 2011 workshop, Engaging and Learning for Conservation. It describes the eBirding citizen science program, including its methods, findings and conclusions.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Andrea Wiggins
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The Franklin Institute Science Museum is planning, implementing, evaluating and disseminating the results of a 2.5 day conference entitled "Museums and New Family. Audiences - Building Relationships." The conference will be held in Philadelphia and involve a total of 75 professionals representing 25 museum/community programs, local community partners, advisers, and community partnership funders. Growing out of several initiatives over the past decade, the primary goal of the conference is to explore how museums and other informal science education organizations can develop and maintain long-term museum/community relationships to engage underserved families in informal STEM activities. Outcomes will include stronger relationships, a set of best practices and guidelines to be disseminated to the field, and the beginnings of a network.
The New York Hall of Science (NYSCI), in collaboration with O\'Reilly Media will host a two-day workshop to explore the potential for the kinds of making, designing, and engineering practices celebrated at Maker Faire to enrich science and math learning. The purpose of this workshop is to identify and aggregate successful programming strategies that increase student engagement and proficiency in STEM, with a focus on students underrepresented in STEM careers. The meeting will be organized around three main ideas: catalyzing a national Maker movement; dissemination and scaling of design principles; and assessment of impacts on STEM learning and attitudes. The convening highlights the capacity of making activities to impact student motivation, attitudes, and conceptual understanding in STEM in both informal and formal learning environments. The workshop will be held in conjunction with the World Maker Faire at NYSCI on September 18-19, 2011. The World Maker Faire is a two-day, family-friendly event that celebrates the Do-it-Yourself or DIY movement and brings together a broad community of professionals and laypersons with a common interest in technology-based creativity, tinkering, and the reuse of materials and technology. The proposed workshop extends the work of the previous Maker Faire workshop (DRL 10-46459) by identifying initiatives that bridge the Maker and STEM communities while building students' foundational STEM knowledge and engaging audiences underrepresented in STEM careers. This workshop will accommodate approximately 50 local and national scientists, engineers, learning science researchers, educators, policymakers, and philanthropists. Select participants will present detailed case studies of maker programs, design principles, assessments, and measured outcomes in STEM attitudes and learning. Key elements of successful programs and assessment strategies will be identified across the case studies in brainstorming sessions and roundtable discussions. Following the workshop, a subset of the case studies will be compiled into an edited volume, indexed by the dimensions of student learning in the National Research Council publication, "A Framework for K-12 STEM Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts and Core Ideas." This project uses the momentum of the popular Maker Faire movement, based in design, engineering and technology concepts, to connect to STEM education while capitalizing on the strengths of informal learning environments. The workshop provides researchers, practitioners, and policymakers with an aggregated collection of program design principles and reliable metrics for documenting changes in preK-20 STEM attitudes and learning. The edited volume has the potential to advance the understanding of how to bridge formal and informal learning environments, while also fostering research on the affective dimensions of making in diverse audiences.
Arizona State University is conducting a May 2010 two-day workshop that will bring together "Next Generation" (NextGen) science communicators (writers, journalists, bloggers, documentary filmmakers, museum professionals); NextGen scholars/researchers in science and technology policy; and publication editors. The goals are: to help improve the communications skills of these professionals, to encourage collaborations of communicators and scholars, and, ultimately, to help the public gain a better understanding of the policy dimensions of STEM by encouraging more effective communications about STEM and policy issues that affect their lives. The workshop provides direct experience in a writing genre called "narrative nonfiction" or "creative nonfiction," a domain in which Gutkind has been a leader. The co-PI, Guston, is a scholar in science and technology policy and an active partner of the NSF-funded Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network. In addition, the Spring 2011 issue of Issues in Science and Technology will include works by the collaborating communicators/scholars. This workshop precedes and informs a larger conference on science policy, The Rightful Place of Science?," funded by others, including NSF's Science, Technology, and Society program.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Lee GutkindDavid Guston
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The Museum of Science, Boston, in partnership with Arizona State University, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Loka Institute, and Scienceforcitizens.net, is conducting a 1.5-day workshop whose goal is to strengthen and expand recent cross-sector network-building activities related to engaging the public in conversations and deliberations about the assessment of the societal implications of science and technology. In attendance are about two-dozen participants representing a wide range of informal science education professionals, STEM researchers, and science policy experts. The workshop is focusing on: (1) techniques for citizen participation in technology assessment, (2) ways in which informal educational organizations are addressing the intersection of STEM with personal and societal decision-making, and (3) models for leveraging work done by others who are exploring public engagement with future technologies. The process will also help generate and coalesce ideas for the 2012 World-Wide Views on Biodiversity program, an international effort to engage the public on the topic of world-wide loss of biodiversity. The workshop outcomes will be evaluated by the Museum's Research and Evaluation Department.
Temple University's Center for Reimagining Children's Learning and Education, the University of Delaware, and Johns Hopkins University are collaborating with the Children's Museum of Manhattan and several other children's museums, science centers, and researchers around the U.S. to conduct a two-day workshop to review and expand the research base on the role of play in children's learning of STEM. The workshop is associated with a larger, multi-faceted initiative called the Ultimate Block Party (UBP), whose mission is to make a case for and conduct activities on the science of learning and the importance of play in children's lives and their development of 21st century skills. Associated with the workshop, UBP activities in 2010 include a major event on October 3 in Central Park, New York City, whose purpose is to provide families with engaging activities that emphasize how the science of learning supports the critical role of playful learning in children's education. The workshop participants will include both researchers and practitioners who will share knowledge about children's learning in informal settings and strategize on how to maximize the kind of scientific learning that takes place in free-choice learning environments. A particular emphasis will be on sparking curiosity about STEM by children from all socio-economic and ethnic groups. On the second day, participants will also contribute to the event in Central Park by observing and commenting on the event, its impact on attendees, and possible improvements for future events in New York and around the country. The process includes an evaluation of the workshop and the production of a workshop report. Dissemination will be both to academic research and informal science education communities.
The "Crafting & Evaluating Interactive Educational Websites" conference will be developed through a collaboration between the Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology and the Exploratorium. The PIs will develop and host a three-day invitational conference focusing on the practice of interactive web site design, development, evaluation and maintenance intended to achieve or support informal STEM learning. The conference, which will be held in Spring, 2005, will involve 50 individuals with a wide range of expertise who will focus on a variety of issues including audience expectations and abilities, designing for learner outcomes, testing for usability, evaluation tools and accessibility. With regard to intellectual merit, conference attendees will explore challenges and barriers that hinder development of truly interactive web sites and identify best practices and promising models, tools and technologies for encouraging authentic public interaction. Conversations begun at the conference will be extended to a broader audience through development of an online manual, informed by the conference presentations and commentaries, and designed for use by the museum, media and research communities. An interactive Web site developed after the conference will allow Web developers to locate content and ideas for design, and to share new ideas and results of usability studies and evaluations.
The "Crafting & Evaluating Interactive Educational Websites" conference will be developed through a collaboration between the Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology and the Exploratorium. The PIs will develop and host a three-day invitational conference focusing on the practice of interactive web site design, development, evaluation and maintenance intended to achieve or support informal STEM learning. The conference, which will be held in Spring, 2005, will involve 50 individuals with a wide range of expertise who will focus on a variety of issues including audience expectations and abilities, designing for learner outcomes, testing for usability, evaluation tools and accessibility. With regard to intellectual merit, conference attendees will explore challenges and barriers that hinder development of truly interactive web sites and identify best practices and promising models, tools and technologies for encouraging authentic public interaction. Conversations begun at the conference will be extended to a broader audience through development of an online manual, informed by the conference presentations and commentaries, and designed for use by the museum, media and research communities. An interactive Web site developed after the conference will allow Web developers to locate content and ideas for design, and to share new ideas and results of usability studies and evaluations.
The Science Museum of Minnesota is requesting $279,577, of a total budget of $339,074, to plan and conduct a four-day international conference exploring issues, current practices and future directions related to furthering public understanding of current research in science and technology. The conference will bring together leading museum professionals, scientific researchers, science journalists, television producers, web developers and others who are already engaged in preliminary work for such an effort and who stand to learn from each other's experiences. The conference will center on the role of museums in informing the public about research, but will include representatives from other media and institutions crucial to its success. The specific goals of the conference are to: Explore challenges and barriers that hinder the development of public understanding of research programs. Identify "best practices" and promising models, tools and technologies for presenting current research to the public. Develop partnership strategies for creating public understanding of research program collaborations across the museum, media and research communities. Identify strategies for selecting significant research stories that are relevant to the public. Develop funding strategies and operational approaches that help sustain a consistent public understanding of research effort. The project will be under the direction of David Chittenden, Vice President for Education at the Science Museum of Minnesota. Advisors to the project include: Carol Lynn Alpert, Museum of Science, Boston; John Beatty, Distinguished Teaching Professor, University of Minnesota; Graham Farmelo, Head of Science Communications, Science Museum of London; Richard Hudson, Twin Cities Public Television, St. Paul; Ken Keller, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota; Rob Semper, The Exploratorium; David Ucko, Koshland Science Center and Science Outreach, National Academy of Sciences; and Bonnie VanDorn, Executive Director, Association of Science-Technology Centers.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
David ChittendenAnne HornickelDonald Pohlman