In Honor of the Human-Computer Interaction Lab's 30th Anniversary, we would like to invite you to the fourth lecture in our Distinguished Lecturer Series. 

Mark Guzdial, GA Tech
"Making Online Education Work"

Tuesday, February 19, 2013 at 11am
2324 Computer and Space Sciences Building, University of Maryland-College Park

Abstract:
In my research group, we have been exploring how to make online education effective for over 15 years.  We have learned how contextualizing collaboration can lead to longer on-topic discussions, but how student perceptions can dramatically inhibit discussion.  We have shown that well-designed online activities can lead to better learning at reduced cost (including time costs for the student and instructor).  The student audience matters, as we learned when studying how graphics designers teach themselves programming using online resources.  We are currently developing an ebook for high school teachers, who need to learn under tight time constraints.  In working on our ebook, we have shown that explicit subgoal labels in videos leads to improved retention and transfer. 

Bio:
Mark Guzdial is a Professor in the School of Interactive Computing in the College of Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology. His research focuses on learning sciences and technology, specifically, computing education research. He has published several books on the use of media as a context for learning computing. He was the original developer of the "Swiki" which was the first wiki designed for educational use. He was awarded a joint Ph.D. degree in Education and Computer Science from the University of Michigan in 1993. He serves on the ACM's Education Council and the Special Interest Group in CS Education (SIGCSE) Board, and is on the editorial boards of the "Journal of the Learning Sciences," "ACM Transactions on Computing Education," and "Communications of the ACM." With his wife and colleague, Barbara Ericson, he received the 2010 ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator award. He was also the recipient of the 2012 IEEE Computer Society Undergraduate Teaching Award.