Learning for the 21st Century

Mark Warschauer

This three-year project, begun in spring 2008, is investigating a technology-enhanced educational reform project at a large K-12 school in Southern California. The reform project seeks to transform teaching and learning by incorporating two overlapping approaches: (a) understanding by design and (b) 21st century learning skills. Through classroom observations, interviews, and analysis of school-, teacher-, and student-created artifacts, the study will investigate issues related to teaching, professional development, learning, and assessment for deep understanding and 21st century skills, with the goal of helping inform similar educational reform projects across the country.

Technology and English Language Teaching

Mark Warschauer

This 18-month project, begun in spring 2008, is examining how new technologies are used in English language teaching in 14 countries in the Americas and Asia. First, an online survey will be conducted of 500 English language teachers across the countries in secondary schools, private language schools, adult schools, and higher education. Follow up phone interviews will be conducted with 40 of the survey takers. Then case studies will be conducted of about 6-8 schools in 2-3 countries to include site visits, classroom observations, collections of artifacts, and additional interviews. Data will be analyzed to better understand the present and future of technology use in the English language classroom.

One Laptop Per Mexican Child? Technology Access and Digital Literacy for the New Generation

Mark Warschauer

This one-year project, funded by the University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States, was launched in 2008 to investigate the implementation of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program in Mexico. Visits will be conducted in summer 2009 to OLPC educational sites to investigate teaching learning and processes and their interrelationship with social context.

New Media Technologies and Civic Literacy

Rebecca Black and Bill Tomlinson

Civic literacy skills and public voices are increasingly necessary for effective participation and interaction in our technology-mediated society. Through two interconnected efforts, this research aims to help youth develop these abilities. The first effort involves exploration of the many forms of social activism and civic discussion that are already taking place in youth-oriented online spaces. This includes a focus on how youths’ activity related to fan fiction, video gaming, and social networking (e.g., creating and circulating petitions, debating the merits of particular game characters, joining groups) can be related to more traditional forms of political and social activism. The second effort involves the design and implementation of an online space aimed at the production and dissemination of texts related to social issues and civic activism. The site design will be informed by the data gathered during the exploration effort of the project in order to enable youth to write, refine, discuss, and distribute position pieces on issues of concern to them.

What we can learn from Facebook: Semiotics and identity among generation 1.5 Chinese immigrants

Rebecca Black

Recent years have seen increased attention given to the ways computer-mediated communication (CMC) affects language learners’ trajectories of language practices in social contexts and cultural identity developments. However, research that concentrates on relationship between collegiate Chinese immigrant students’ semiotic forms in CMC and their social, cultural, and ethnic identifications is scant. The purpose of this research study is to better understand how the multimodal functions (e.g. text, visual, audio, and image compositions) of online communication are used in and/or influence collegiate Chinese immigrant students’ communication, socialization, and self-representation on Facebook.This study will help identify how the use of Facebook enables Chinese immigrant students to develop their semiotic performance and facilitate their assimilation to the US society.

Technology, Out-of-School Learning and Human Development

Deborah Vandell and Mark Warschauer

This study, launched in 2006, is examining learning and human development in technology intensive, community learning center in Southern California. Further details can be found here.

Laptops and Literacy: Pervasive Computing in US Schools

Mark Warschauer

This study, launched in the 2003-04 academic year, is investigating the use of laptop computing and wireless networking in US schools. Case study research has been conducted on students who use laptops at home and throughout the school day in ten public schools, including students from diverse cultural, linguistic, and socio-economic backgrounds. The project investigates the types of literacy practices that students engage in using the laptops both at school and at home. A book on the research, Laptops and Literacy: Learning in the Wireless Classroom, has been published, as have several papers.

Expanding Engineering Thinking: Interactive Visualization of Numerical Models

Mark Warschauer

This 2002-2005 project, with funding from the National Science Foundation, established and investigated a high-tech classroom in the UCI School of Engineering for fostering visualization among engineering and computer science students. The classroom includes both a state-of-the-art smartboard that automatically translates formulas into graphs, and a virtual reality laboratory that allows three-dimensional modeling. For a more technical description, see the project Webpage.

Technology and Academic Preparation: A Comparative Study

Mark Warschauer

This 2001-2002 study, funded by UC NEXUS and UC ACCORD, is aimed at documenting and comparaing the availability of, access to and uses of new technologies in diverse high schools of Southern California. Two sets of high schools were included in the study, a set of five high schools in low socio-economic status neighborhoods with relatively low academic achievement, and a set of three high schools in wealthier communities with higher academic achievement.  See an article about the study.