It’s been a while since I last blogged. The last few months have been a blur. First I moved back to Toronto from Paris, then packed up the family again and moved to Copenhagen. For me, it’s a big change on multiple fronts. There’s not only the culture shock in moving to a foreign country and setting up shop, but also in returning to research at the university after a maternity leave. I now have a great deal of respect for researchers, especially those who are also parents, who have done stints overseas. It’s definitely not easy to do this, but very worthwhile. Even though there are no shortage of interesting things to do, I’m going to try to blog more regularly to document my journey through this phase of my academic career!
In January, I started a postdoctoral research fellowship in the Computational Social Sciences Laboratory at the Center for Applied ICT, Copenhagen Business School. It’s a fantastic opportunity for me as a design researcher, to work on a large-scale ICT (FP 7) project called Next Generation Teaching and Learning for Life (NEXT-TELL). The main objective of this project is to provide, through research and development, computational and methodological support to teachers and students so that they have nuanced information about learning when it is needed and in a format that is supportive of pedagogical decision making, thus optimizing the level of stimulation, challenge, and feedback for students.
Over the next year or more, I’ll be collaborating closely with stakeholders–teachers, students, principals, and parents –at several Danish middle schools and the design team led by Prof. Ravi Vatrapu. Together, we are designing a usable interface for an open learner model that enables stakeholders to share and discuss learning activities and outcomes in technology-enhanced 21st century classrooms in real time. I’ll write more about this project in upcoming entries, but those of you going to LAK’11 can hear more about the work we are doing. We’re presenting a couple of papers there. Should be a really interesting conference.
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