[TOS] Cyberlearning and the NSF

[Mel Chua]

To give a bit more context on why I went "hey, grant applications!" in 
response to Steve's thread about the workshop -- the 6-day delay is due 
to me waiting for Jeremi's permission to send this out. (I have a nag 
queue now of Things To Make Public. Hooyah. Slowly but surely, 
TRANSPARENCY NINJAHOOD.) (I hope.)

Jeremi London, one of the other students in my department, presented 
last week on some work she did over the summer for the NSF focused on 
cyberlearning (of which one could argue that TOS is a subset). 
Specifically: what's been funded, what's the state of cyberlearning, how 
do NSF program officers feel about it?

Jeremi looked at the funding the NSF has given to cyberlearning stuff 
over the past decade -- which is $100.6 million USD to 866 projects. 
(Note that there are plenty of non-NSF-funded projects -- for instance, 
Wikipedia didn't start from an NSF grant... this is something I want to 
talk with her about.)

The outcomes she found in successful cyberlearning projects:

(1) Support learning in real-world contexts
(2) Connect learners to experts and communities of other learners
(3) Provide scaffolding and tools to enhance learning, such as 
visualization and analysis tools that enable students to utilize complex 
data for higher-order thinking
(4) Provide opportunities for feedback, reflection, and revision in the 
acquisition and construction of knowledge
(5) Expand opportunities for teacher learning, using methods such as 
online communities of practice and best-practice case studies
(6) Customizable, personalized learning experience

...yeah, so some of these should look real familiar to anyone in TOS.

She looked at what type of cyberlearning techniques were used across 
these projects. Most of them involved remote access to an authentic or 
virtual environment OR a learning management system (I'm not yet clear 
on the definition of "learning management system" being used, though). 
Another interesting note -- "Online Communities" was used a lot in other 
disciplines, but NOT for the Computing field. So either there's a hole 
here we can fill, or the Computing field has been getting its 
online-community-fu in other ways (like what we've been doing so far), 
or "doesn't need it" (unlikely), or something else.

Finally, one thing jumped out at me: very, very few cyberlearing 
proposals are used to "support learning in real-world contexts" or 
"provide learners with a personalized learning experience." And that is 
*basically* what we're doing here. So again, potential hole to fill?

There's plenty more here about things like impact assessment (summary: 
"we don't do that very well yet") and involving industry partners 
(hullo) and that sort of stuff, but the work isn't yet public so this is 
about as much as I can share right now -- will update y'all when more is 
available.

--Mel