faculty
Work Carolyn Pope Edwards Hall (CPEH) 158
Lincoln NE 68588-0233
US
Work 402-472-2231 On campus, dial 2-2231
At the heart of my work is understanding and expanding the capacity of students to build and express their ideas and knowledge. In the 20th century, building and expressing one’s understanding typically took the form of written texts. In the early 21st century, learning within and across disciplines and constructing and expressing understanding comes in an increasing variety of forms. Advances in hardware, software, and networking, as well as societal shifts toward an increased variation of accepted discursive styles have created opportunities for students to construct and express their understanding via modalities and mediums such as images, data visualizations, physical prototypes, digital artifacts, web and mobile applications, audio podcasts, presentations, 360 degree videos, digital fabrication, and mixed reality as well as via youth and non-academic discourses. These 21st century shifts are also changing how people learn and work—moving from a primary focus on individual declarative-knowledge-based competencies within text-centric instructional contexts to a focus on applied individual and group understandings within multimodal interactive learning ecologies. However—despite these shifts that are expanding the range of possible modalities and mediums for learning—schools, the state curriculum, and the life experiences of those who teach remain rooted in traditions, content, and pedagogies that privilege some students while alienating and disadvantaging others. With an interest in studying, leveraging, and influencing these shifts and challenges, I am cultivating an integrated mission and focus across my research, teaching, and service endeavors. Specifically I aim to design, integrate, and use inquiry, AI, and technology to make new forms of meaning-making and expression possible, to overcome barriers to understanding and expression, and to reduce the alienation often associated with learning in academic contexts. With this mission and focus, I design and lead professionalizing learning experiences that teach current and pre-service educators how to (re)think technology’s role in their lives and in their teaching. I design and lead experiences for teachers, instructional designers, software developers, and researchers that build their capacity to theorize about, analyze, evaluate, and design learning experiences. I co-establish, co-cultivate, co-lead, and participate in communities interested in using inquiry, multimodality, and design to address the issues and problems that confront Nebraskans to make new things possible for the learning communities of today and tomorrow. In short, I design, I question, and I build.

icon-academic-capEducation

  • Ph D, University of Texas, 2011
  • MEd, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, 2004
  • MEd, University of Houston, 2001
  • BA, Minnesota State University Mankato, 1997

icon-chat-userCourses

  • TEAC 259, Instructional Technology, Fall 2018
  • TEAC 859, Designing Learning Experiences, Fall 2018
  • TEAC 882D, Artificial Intelligence, and APIs in the Design of Learning Experiences, Spring 2018
  • TEAC 960, Topical Seminar in Instructional Technology; Making New Things Possible, Spring 2015

icon-documentPublications and Other Intellectual Contributions

  • Visualizing Revision: Leveraging Student-Generated Between-Draft Diagramming Data in Support of Academic Writing Development, Technology, Knowledge and Learning
  • What does Motivated Mean? Learning, Technology, and Motivation in Public School Settings, Middle Grades Review, July (3rd Quarter/Summer) 2016
  • 打字宝 Dǎ Zì Bǎo Chinese Character Helper (Version 0.2), Web App, April (2nd Quarter/Spring) 2017
  • New Media Literacies, Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory
  • Historical Analysis: Tracking, Problematizing, and Reterritorializing Achievement and the Achievement Gap, May 2017

icon-business-chartResearch & Grants

  • CEHS Digital Research & Design Studio: A CEHS Technology Innovation Project Proposal, UNL CEHS Technology Committee, August 2015

icon-keynotePresentations

  • Panel: Fostering Innovation in Education Institutions, London, UK
  • Visualizing Revision: Re-Mediating Self-Evaluation via Between-Drafts Concept Mapping, American Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL
  • Connecting Critical Whiteness to Elementary Classrooms and Education Technologies, East Campus Union, Lincoln, NE

icon-bookmark-starAwards & Honors

  • UNL Parent Award, Student Affairs, Parents Association & the UNL Teaching Council, 2018
  • Innovative Social Entreprenurship Design and Development Award, LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas Austin, 2007

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