Upcoming Event: Conference on Cyberlearning Tools for STEM Education (CyTSE) (pronounced “sightsee”): March 8-9, 2011
Use cyberlearning tools to engage the current net-savvy generation of learning and excite them about science, technology, math and engineering (STEM)

Who’s Attending?

What’s It About?

Bringing together researchers, developers and STEM educators involved in cyberlearning tools for two days, this conference offers attendees the opportunity to share knowledge, forge new partnerships, and contribute to the development of a research agenda on K-12 STEM cyberlearning tools and their role in workforce preparation and development issues.

• Strengthening the “research-to-classroom” pipeline by integrating cyberlearning tools into classrooms
• Addressing important trends and issues on how cyberlearning tools can improve and reform STEM education at the K-12 level for the future STEM workforce that highlights these new online tools for STEM education

What Will You Learn?

Teachers: Get familiar with new cyberlearning tools and learn how to integrate these tools into your classroom.

Researchers: Design better cyberlearning tools through exposure to the real-world contexts in which your tools will be deployed to STEM learners. Interact with practicing K-12 STEM educators for better teacher input, in-situ tests with students, and more design feedback cycles.

Tentative Agenda
Thematically, Day 1 of the conference is focused on R&D and evaluation issues. Educators who arrive earlier on Day 1 may choose to join for the afternoon parallel session on implementation and integration (or others of their choice) followed by a networking dinner on the evening of Day 1.

Day 2 is designed to accommodate STEM educators who can only arrive one day early for NSTA.

There will be ample networking opportunities for attendees.

Day 1: Research & Development

The first day of the conference is focused on research, development, technology and evaluation issues and is targeted primarily at the R&D community. STEM educators who are able to arrive two days early for NSTA will be welcome to attend all or part of Day 1 and will find the content accessible to them as well.

Keynotes: Two prominent members of the cyberinfrastructure and/or cyberlearning community will kick off the conference with keynotes.

Expert Panel: Cyberlearning Tools & Future of STEM Education. This panel will bring together members of the cyberinfrastructure and cyberlearning communities for an interactive discussion on the current and future role for cyberlearning tools in STEM education.

Interactive Poster Sessions: Each of these 1-1⁄2 hour sessions contains five topical tracks with about five invited poster presenters per track. All five tracks will be offered during two different sessions (Session A and B in the table above), allowing time for people to attend two tracks fully or intellectually browse if they prefer. The sessions themselves will be highly interactive in format with groups spending 45 minutes on a poster track. This format allows individuals to select two topics per session with a short break in between.

Emerging technologies – An opportunity to showcase the latest generation of cyberlearning tools and platforms, from both commercial vendors and higher education research projects.

Design and development – In-depth discussions on techniques and guidelines for the design and development of cyberlearning resources and associated student and teacher curriculum materials.

Technical and deployment challenges/solutions – A technical track dealing with the hardware and software issues involved in creating and delivering reliable, sustainable and interoperable cyberlearning resources.

Implementation & integration track – This track will bring together STEM educators and developers to foster mutual understanding of the realities of implementing cyberlearning tools in real STEM education programs and integrating them into existing curricula. This track will give teachers a productive (but not required) activity on Day 1, engaging them in a discussion of how their lessons can leverage cyberlearning tools and help their students better achieve critical learning objectives. It will also provide them with a nice segue into the “Hands-On Demo Sessions” on Day 2.

Research and evaluation – Presentation of current research on cyberlearning tools and evaluations of their effectiveness in a variety of educational settings. By reviewing the current “state of the art” in cyberlearning evaluations, this session will lay the groundwork for developing an agenda of research questions that need to be addressed and concrete ideas for addressing them. This track feeds into the Day 2 in-depth session on research agenda formulation.

Day 2: Implementation and Integration
The second day of the conference is focused on implementation and integration of cyberlearning tools in formal and informal STEM learning environments.

Keynotes: Dr. Carl Wieman will keynote to kick off Day 2 of the conference. A second keynote speaker will address the conference during lunch.

Hands-on Demo Session. In order to familiarize participants with the range of cyberlearning tools available, the morning of Day 2 will be devoted to an extended (two- to three-hour) hands-on demo session. This session will permit participants to mingle with cyberlearning tool developers and publishers and actually try out the various tools. Participants will be able to engage in dialogue with tool developers and publishers to better understand the capabilities of each tool and how it can be used with students.   
        

Training, Development, and Collaboration: In-Depth Sessions.  The entire afternoon of Day 2 will be devoted to in-depth sessions that provide an extended period of time (3-4 hours) for training, development and collaboration. Four in-depth sessions are planned:

Teacher Professional Development Sessions (Teacher community learning from the R&D community) – Teachers may sign up for a professional development workshop that provides hands-on training on a particular cyberlearning tool and how to implement it in the classroom. 

Design focus groups (R&D Community learning from teacher community) – R&D teams invite teachers / teacher leaders to experiment with their cyberlearning tools-in-development and provide design feedback to improve the tools and their integration with other tools teachers are using and with their K-12 learning environment. 

Developer / Publisher Integration and Interoperability Workshops (Developers learning from each other) - The goal of this in-depth workshop is to bring the developers/vendors together in a semi-structured activity with the specific goal of exploring and fostering possible collaboration or integration efforts between cyberlearning tools.  For example, simulation developers and creators of remote online labs could explore how to link both tools to provide STEM learners with multiple linked representations of a phenomenon being investigated. 

Cyberlearning Research Agenda.  Leaders from the cyberinfrastructure, cyberlearning and evaluation communities will take the ideas and issues raised during Day 1 and work together on the development of a research agenda on K-12 STEM cyberlearning tools and their role in workforce preparation and development issues. 

New Cyberlearning Tools and Techniques Being Developed:

• Visual programming languages designed for children

• Microworlds for learning computational thinking in science, technology, engineering and mathematics

• Intelligent tutoring systems in algebra, geometry and programming

• Microcomputer-based laboratories and handheld computing versions of probeware and sensors for capturing and graphing data during scientific inquiry

• Online learning communities for teachers and learners in many subject domains

• Data visualization environments for examining and understanding complexity in the STEM disciplines

• Scientific inquiry support environments in biology, chemistry and physics

• STEM learning games and virtual worlds

Leadership Team

This collaborative research effort brings deep expertise in cyberlearning tool development, science education, and educational media and broad outreach and dissemination connections throughout our target participant communities.

Dr. Kemi Jona (Director of the Office of STEM Education Partnerships at Northwestern University)

Dr. Carl Wieman (Chair of the National Research Council's Board on Science Education, Chairman of the Physics Education Technology Project, and Nobel Laureate in physics)

Ted Sicker (Executive Producer at WGBH Boston's Interactive and Educational Productions)

Dr. Phillip Long (Director of the Centre for Educational Innovation and Technology at the University of Queensland) bring unparalleled experience, connections, and perspective within the cyberlearning tools community.