Reflections on Lessons Learned: The Center for Innovative Learning Technologies Roy Pea Stanford University AERA 2003 Chicago, Illinois

Introducing CILT Mission: To serve as a national resource for stimulating research on innovative, technology-enabled solutions to critical problems in K-14 STEM learning Concord Consortium

Center for Innovative Learning Technologies “Uniting people, technology, and powerful ideas for learning”

CILT Structure Practice Policy Industry Research Community SRI Core institutions, PI leadership council, Postdocs, and research community partners in projects Encompassing domains: CILT’s activities and programs fostered collaboration across traditional community boundaries. Practice Policy Industry Research Community I would say bridging ‘sectors’ SRI Vanderbilt Concord Berkeley Stanford

CILT Mechanisms CILT leadership defined “Theme Teams” for workshops and projects Visualization & Modeling Ubiquitous Computing Assessments for Learning Community Tools CILT's conferences and workshops advanced the learning sciences and technology field Provided a collaborative forum in which the community met to assess the progress of the field, define research agendas, and initiate new partnerships. Dynamic ‘firehose’, poster and demo presentations presented new work and collaboration needs CILT conducted 13 workshops/conferences with more than 1,380 participants These four theme teams spawned other activities: Synergy Project (integrating work across the theme-teams) and CILT NetCourses CILT Knowledge Network (CILT-KN, from Community Tools) Design Principles Database (from Visualization and Modeling)

CILT Seed Grants ICSAR (Interoperable Components for Shared Active Representations (20-person seed and related work) Workshops and conferences defined key areas for important new collaborative work through group brainstorming moderated by CILT leadership Participants determined areas of priority research by voting on poster-paper with ‘sticky dots’ Defining seed projects: People voted with their feet to form teams based upon personal interests in community-defined high-priority topics and worked for most of a day to define projects Seed grant teams proposed to be funded by CILT in a rapid turnaround process 60 CILT Seed Grants were awarded that involved researchers, industry, and educators from 169 different institutions

CILT Seed Grants (1997-2002)

CILT Seeds The majority of the 60 seed grants continued their work beyond the seed grant funding, submitting follow-on proposals to NSF or other sources, or leading to other community-wide activities

CILT Postdoctoral Fellow Program A postdoctoral program trained 8 scholars to work at the intersection of the sciences of learning, technology innovation, and technology appropriation in learning settings including schools. Postdoctoral scholars were distributed across the theme teams and institution, and stimulated both theme collaborations and research synthesis. Their contact with the members of the leadership team, their participation in all CILT discussions, and their role with respect to seed grants enabled them to situate their own research in the context of the field, to better understand the needs of the field, and to share these views with their junior colleagues. They also designed and led Netcourses on the themes for researchers and educators (6 weeks), most offered twice.

CILT Postdoctoral Fellows Energetic!!!

CILT Accomplishments Raising the bar for what learning technology R&D can be Capturing, sharing and advancing the collective intelligence of the field. Promoting by requiring and seed funding generative cross-disciplinary and cross-sector partnerships. Training a new generation of leaders. Modeling new collaborative approaches to learning technology innovation: Synergy Engaging industry in CILT projects for mutual influences to improve education through research-based innovations. T\his looks great. It communicates well with one change: Capturing the collective intelligence of the field TO Capturing and sharing the collective intelligence of the field

Ten CILT Posters

Yoko Ono's Wish Tree is part of a series of works created in the 1990s, in which Ono uses actual trees as the primary element. Yoko: "As a child in Japan, I used to go to a temple and write out a wish on a piece of thin paper and tie it around the branch of a tree. Trees in temple courtyards were always filled with people's wish knots, which looked like white flowers blossoming from afar.” Yoko Ono asks that we, the audience, participate in this wish tree by identifying our desires and daring to write them down. Make a wish about learning technology futures and CILT-like partnerships. Write it down in this space. Ask your friends to do the same. Keep wishing until the Wish Tree is filled with wishes.