research | tech integration | web dev | papers |

research projects at Harvard in educational technology

Milwaukee Public Schools New Teacher Online Portal, 2001-2002 -

Working with Dr. Chris Dede and Milwaukee Public Schools I helped to develop a new teacher induction program with an online support portal. We utilized emerging technologies like interactive video conferencing and online collaboration tools to see what impact they could have on the mentoring experience. You can learn more about this project at:
http://gseacademic.harvard.edu/~mps/

Formative Evaluator, 2001 -

Working with Dr. Ilona Holland and graduate students at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, I conducted front-end, production-phase, and implementation phase formative evaluations for the Boston MFA, Minnesota Science Museum Imax production, and Sensimetrics Software. I developed survey, interview, and focus group instruments and collected and analyzed data. You can read two of my reports below in my academic paper section.

Technology and Ethics Project, 2000 -

I helped develop high school curriculum integrating technology and ethics. We created a mock negotiation around a controversial scientific issue, xenotransplantation. The negotiation curriculum utilized collaborative teams and online collaboration tools to support students in researching and reflecting on complex ethical decisions.

technology integration

I have developed several curriculums integrating technology. Below you can read about three of my projects:

Literacy and Technology -

Inspiring authentic reading, research and writing in the elementary classroom is a difficult task. What can we as educators do to inspire reading with the purpose to learn and discover? How do we get children to do real research on a topic that interests them? Furthermore, how do we get young readers and writers to communicate in their own words what they have learned rather than simply replicating the text they've read? Based on my own classroom experiences, I argue that the Internet is the most efficacious way to deliver this content and to foster discovery learning. I will review some tools on the Internet available to teachers that make using Internet resources easy and accessible. As an example, I propose using the motivating theme of animals as an entry point for informational reading. Finally, I will outline some of the technology tools that reflect a new paradigm of literacy and can seamlessly bridge informational reading to informational writing.
You can download my paper at this site:
http://homepage.mac.com/dewolfe/FileSharing1.html

Science Curriculum Supported with Technology - 

Using the Harvard Education with New Technologies collaborative design tool, I helped to develop a curriculum for 4th graders to meet state science standards. The objective of the curriculum was to teach important concepts in physics while learning to think like a scientist. We utilized several pieces of educational software and web sites to leverage the learning of students. View the curriculum here.

Girls & Technology, Inspiring Interest -

The digital divide is a term often used to describe the growing inequalities in access between upper middle class communities and their disadvantaged counterparts. However, there exists another digital divide that separates boys from girls in their technical skills; skills that are in high demand in our current economy. Girls are not well-represented in computer laboratories, clubs, and computer science courses. Girls lag behind boys significantly in the depth and frequency of their computer use. In order to address this concern, I developed lessons to teach girls programming skills using MicroWorlds. Utilizing narrative storytelling we created interactive stories that required complex programming in the MicroWorlds environment.

We discussed careers in technology and attempted to remove some of the intimidation many girls feel about this field. View the curriculum at the following URL:
http://homepage.mac.com/dewolfe/mas712_final_project/

educational web development

I have designed and developed a number of educational web sites. I have listed a select few here:

Online Aquatic Ecosystems Web Site -

Online Aquatic Ecosystems provides an environment in which middle school teachers and students can share data from local aquatic ecosystems. In doing so, the hope is that students will compare their data to other student's findings and start meaningful discussions on topics relevant to aquatic ecosystems. Online Aquatic Ecosystems also seeks to encourage students to transfer the knowledge of scientific concepts learned in their own classrooms to understand similar issues and problems in an unfamiliar setting. As a large class project, I worked in a team of three to create this server side, database driven web site. Although not all components are operational as it was a class prototype, the search by location button functions utilizing coldfusion database interactivity.
http://homepage.mac.com/dewolfe/aqua/
I am particularly proud of the "Tutorial" and "Science Sleuths" pages. I drew upon the constructivist theory of learning to create scaffolded learning paths to introduce students to the web site and scientific deduction.

Software Prototype -

I developed a software tool to help elementary school children with story creation and summary. The Interactive Storyboard is designed to provide learners with varying degrees of scaffolding as they learn sequencing, summary skills and creative writing. Children can choose to create three, four, or eight frame stories. Then they can graphically illustrate, spell check, and print their stories.

I utilized Flash to prototype the software. Not all parts of the prototype are currently functional, but the three frame story is fully functional. You can view the working prototype at:
http://homepage.mac.com/dewolfe/software_prototype/

Accomodating Learning Differences with Technology - A Universal Learning Design Prototype
A universal learning design is a version of a traditional medium, like a book, that has been enhanced utilizing multiple digital mediums in order to make it accessible to a broader range of learners. I researched and designed a prototype of a digital storybook to be a universal learning edition. I created the digital version of the storybook to accommodate and meet the unique needs of a learner with a central auditory processing disorder. (See my academic paper on central auditory processing.)
http://homepage.mac.com/dewolfe/T560final_project/

My Professional Web Site -

I designed my professional web site (which you are now viewing) utilizing Dreamweaver, cascading style sheets, Photoshop, and Fireworks.
http://homepage.mac.com/dewolfe/

academic papers

Literacy and Technology -
Inspiring authentic reading, research and writing in the elementary classroom is a difficult task. What can we as educators do to inspire reading with the purpose to learn and discover? How do we get children to do real research on a topic that interests them? Furthermore, how do we get young readers and writers to communicate in their own words what they have learned rather than simply replicating the text they've read? Based on my own classroom experiences, I argue that the Internet is the most efficacious way to deliver this content and to foster discovery learning. I will review some tools on the Internet available to teachers that make using Internet resources easy and accessible. As an example, I propose using the motivating theme of animals as an entry point for informational reading. Finally, I will outline some of the technology tools that reflect a new paradigm of literacy and can seamlessly bridge informational reading to informational writing.
You can download my paper at this site:
http://homepage.mac.com/dewolfe/FileSharing1.html

Learning Differences -
Every child in our classroom is a unique learner. Some children learn in ways that are not necessarilly accomodated well by the regular classroom environment. Technology can help to support diverse learners. Inspired by struggling students in my own classroom, I researched, wrote and created a web site about Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD). CAPD is often misdiagnosed and confused with Attention Deficit Disorder. Auditory processing is a complex recognition system associated with how our brain extracts meaning from spoken language. AP is important for learning because most of the information communicated in the classroom is auditory. The exact causes of CAPD are not known although many influences like heredity, gender, and chronic ear infections have been correlated. There is also some basis for a neuralanatomical explanation.
All three networks in the brain: recognition, strategic and affective are adversely affected by CAPD. Strengths like visual memory can help to compensate for deficits in these areas. CAPD has only been recognized for the last thirty years and much research remains to be done in the areas of brain morphology and causes.
http://homepage.mac.com/dewolfe/T560courseproject1/
I also created a prototype of a digital storybook to help meet the needs of diverse learners.
http://homepage.mac.com/dewolfe/T560final_project/

Professional Development and Discussion Boards -
With 54 percent of the U.S. population (about 143 million) using the Internet, discussion boards are becoming an integral part of learning. Professional development in various domains -- including executive education, teacher education, and higher education -- is often supported through the use of a discussion board to sustain an ongoing community of practice beyond the face to face experience. In an attempt to examine whether discussion boards are a viable means to sustain these communities of practice, we interviewed five online developers representing these three sectors of professional development. The questions focused on why a discussion board was selected in the first place.
How was the choice of technology informed?
Is the discussion board a worthwhile component of the professional development?
Are the needs of the target audience being addressed?
And when implemented, what are the criteria for success?
It was our original goal to examine these questions. However, the answers to these questions suggest an unanticipated question: Is the discussion board maintaining a "Community of Practice" or a "Community of Interest?"
You can download my paper at this site:
http://homepage.mac.com/dewolfe/FileSharing1.html

Software Development -
When asked to generate ideas for software applications in T522, Software Development, I began to think that a digital version of a storyboard might make a wonderful tool that could be applied across the curriculum and across a wide range of ages (kindergarten through fifth grade). Storyboarding is a method that has long been used by the media industry to plan movies, episodes, and camera shoots. When I was a classroom teacher, I used storyboarding to help kids learn the skills of summarizing, sequencing, comprehension, and story planning. As a classroom teacher, I would have loved to have a digital storyboarding tool to model summary skills, notetaking, and generate story concepts as a class. The advantage of such a tool over other applications, is that it would be very simple. Teachers that I spoke with in the formative stage of the prototype uniformly complained that tools like Hyperstudio and Kidpix have too many options and choices for kids regarding colors, graphics, and effects. All of the teachers that I spoke with suggested that my tool would have a greater emphasis on the text and writing, and perhaps not even allow the child to go on to the color and graphics until they had completed the written portion. It had also been my experience that tools with many "bells and whistles" took much more time to teach the user.
Thus, my prototype is so easy to use that it is intuitive, it uses icons instead of words for the younger readers, and it accommodates individuals or groups of students for multiple applications in the classroom. The tool places emphasis on the writing. Students have to complete the written portion of their storyboards before they can choose graphics for their illustrations. Students that have poor printing but enjoy drawing can print out the text portion of their storyboard and then draw the pictures. Students that don’t enjoy drawing can use the draggable graphics to illustrate their summaries.
You can download my paper at this site:
http://homepage.mac.com/dewolfe/FileSharing1.html

Formative Evaluation -
Formative Evaluation is informal research used to evaluate the efficacy of an educational program or design. How can one increase the likelihood that an educational technology program will accomplish its goals? One way is through formative evaluation. Formative evaluation appraises the appeal and instructional effectiveness of curriculum content, processes, and materials during development, production, and early-implementation phases. The purpose of this research is to increase the potential effectiveness of the final product by systematically gathering feedback for the revision of these various components. I've included two reports here. One involves a front-end needs assessment for the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The other is a power point presentation of an implementation phase evaluation for high school science computer software.
You can download my paper and presentation at this site:
http://homepage.mac.com/dewolfe/FileSharing1.html