I’m hosting a workshop at ICLS 2008 with Stephanie Teasley, Volker Wulf, Eric Cook, and Jude Yew – The Missing Chapters: Learning Sciences Beyond the Classroom. This workshop will provide momentum toward building a community of Learning Sciences researchers who focus on learning that takes place in non-traditional contexts with learners of any age....
Read more →I’ll be in the Seattle area this summer working for Microsoft Research. I’m excited about my internship with Andy Begel in the Human Interactions in Programming group. I’ll get to study newly hired developers and hopefully help make their lives a little easier. I won’t be building anything, which is a relief. I mentioned...
Read more →Ok, so now I’ve done some reading, and I have dusted some of the luster off the academia-business divide. (It’s Friday; I wrote another proposal draft yesterday; I’ll be unpredictable today.) I’m reading Gartner’s “Magic Quadrant for Team Collaboration and Social Software, 2007″ report. I got it from Socialtext, but I’m not sure how. ...
Read more →Today I’m getting up my courage to do a truly descriptive study for my dissertation. I had a bit of practice writing good descriptions in a class last term with Curtis LeBaron, but I’m often encouraged to explain or posit causes and effects. My inner philosopher has always been troubled with that approach. I...
Read more →Last week I participated in a mixed methods workshop with John Creswell. The workshop was quite valuable; we worked through designing a proposal for a real research project. I forget the name of the student whose project we outlined, but he was proposing to study biodiversity sustainability programs in Vietnam and Cambodia. We worked...
Read more →Here’s a summary of the other research I do (or want to do) that’s not my dissertation. This was originally a 2-page research statement submitted to some people with money to burn. Research Summary – Communities and Technologies At the broadest level, my research is about communities and technology. My research enriches our understanding...
Read more →I will save a rant about my frustrations with end-user library systems for a future post. For now, I’ll stick with staying positive. This post describes the process my lovely reference librarian friends have helped me establish for identifying, locating, and downloading electronic versions of articles I really want to read. It’s cold and...
Read more →Sean Munson and I will be hosting a roundtable discussion at the iConference at UCLA in February. The preconference wiki is up and ready for your contributions. Here’s the description of the roundtable: ——————— Professional students, whether undergraduates or masters’ students, represent a significant portion of the iSchool community. How do iSchools effectively educate...
Read more →During the CDI Workshop at Rennselaer in September, one of the computer scientists complained that when he collaborates with social scientists, he feels like they view him as a service provider rather than a collaborator. It sounded like he had some experience with a social scientist who’s approach was to say, “Go build this...
Read more →I have a meeting tomorrow with a leader of a product group at a Silicon Valley-based household name. On the itinerary, I’m described as “a PhD student who has worked on use of social media and etc. by science and engineering research groups”. I’ve been asked to come up with a 3-5 minute introduction...
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