CIRCL News
Happy New Year! We’ve been reading your comments from our Cyberlearning ‘19 evaluation survey. One popular sentiment was “I really appreciated all the different ways that participants can interact and engage one another.” Although the meeting is over, the many ways to interact and meet new colleagues goes on. We’ve massively improved our social media presence, so please follow us on Twitter and Facebook and send news we can retweet to the community — new funding, new insights, new prototypes, new papers, new collaborations, etc. And share this newsletter with your colleagues, so they can sign up.
Another popular comment was “Keynotes were particularly insightful for the work at large and important for the field to be thinking about” — and you can still watch and share the keynotes and access many other useful conference resources on the CIRCL website. As for those of you who said that you loved the conference networking activities, we’ll be on the lookout for your reports of amazing new collaborative efforts. In addition, we’re always available to broker connections… just drop a line and let us know what sort of expertise you are looking for.
In 2020 we look forward to advancing the Rapid Community Report series. If you want to contribute by authoring a Primer, Workshop Outcome, or Design Reflection, we’re actively seeking contributions now and look forward to hearing from you.
Funding Opportunities
NSF CSforAll:RPP invites proposals on researcher-practitioner partnerships (RPPs) that foster the research and development needed to bring computer science and computational thinking to the preK-12 levels. The program will publish a new version of the solicitation in the coming weeks. While the current version of the solicitation lists the next deadline date as occurring in February 2020, the new solicitation will push that date back to the early spring timeframe (~April 1st). Please refer back to the NSF CSforAll:RPP page for updates.
NSF seeks reviewers for National AI Research Institutes proposal review panels. If you are interested in reviewing, please complete this short survey by January 13, 2020. If you are submitting a proposal and have questions, check out NSF FAQs about the National AI Institutes Program.
NSF Future of Work at the Human-Technology Frontier: Core Research invites proposals to advance fundamental understanding of future work, and potential improvements to work, workplaces, workforce preparation, or work outcomes for workers and society. Proposals are due March 9, 2020.
NSF INCLUDES invites planning grant proposals to build capacity in the community to undertake the activities necessary to establish future centers, alliances, or other large-scale networks to address a broadening participation challenge at scale. Proposals are due July 13, 2020.
Mark Schneider, Director of IES, provides an update on IES Topic Areas and Other Thoughts About Upcoming RFAs based on on several months of work trying to reimagine IES’s research topics, especially with respect to development grants.
New STEM for All Multiplex & 2020 Video Showcase May 5-12
Check out the new STEM for All Multiplex, which lets you search and filter videos from all past years of STEM Video Showcases, create playlists based on your interests and favorites, and share playlists with colleagues or friends through email, Twitter, and Facebook. The Multiplex also hosts a Theme of the Month series. Each theme addresses a particular topic in STEM teaching and learning and includes a playlist, blog, interactive expert panel webinar, month-long discussion, and a synthesis brief. We encourage you to visit the Multiplex often and take part in these events.
Save the Dates: The 2020 STEM for All Video Showcase will take place May 5-12 with the theme Learning from Research and Practice. The 2020 Video Showcase web site (stemforall2020.videohall.com) will open on January 14, and registration to present a video will be open between January 14 – February 10.
Featured Perspective: Meet Ale Magana
Ale Magana is a Professor of Computer and Information Technology and Affiliated Faculty of Engineering Education at Purdue University.
Can you tell us a bit about your work?
My work aims to characterize, promote, and scaffold complex forms of thinking and doing in science and engineering domains, particularly in the context of higher education. To do so, I use design-based research approaches to co-create learning experiences that promote disciplinary engagement mediated by practitioners’ tools and cyberlearning innovations. Within this context I focus on four main strands… Read more of Ale’s perspective.
Conferences & Calls
Fablearn 2020 will be held April 4-5, 2020 in New York, with a conference theme, “Making as Resistance and Resilience.” The deadline for Academic Research Papers, Educator Submissions, Demos, and Workshops has been extended to January 22, 2020. Student track submissions are due January 31, 2020.
The Bay Area Learning Analytics Conference (BayLAN) 2020 will be held May 2, 2020, in Berkeley, California. This year’s theme is equity in learning analytics. Learn more and register.
Call for ISLS Fellow Nominations: ISLS seeks nominations for the 2020 International Society of the Learning Sciences (ISLS) fellows. Deadline for nominations is January 21, 2020.
Call for Papers: Culturally-situated and social justice research and approaches in the learning and information sciences, a special issue of Information and Learning Sciences. Submissions are due January 31, 2020.
Call for Papers: Inquiry, Search, and Creativity, a special issue of Information and Learning Sciences. Submissions are due February 15, 2020.
Career Opportunities
Also see #learningsciencesjobs and NSF EHR Job Openings
NSF invites applications for a Program Director position within CISE/IIS in the areas of artificial intelligence and machine learning.
North Carolina State University seeks a postdoctoral research fellow for the Innovative Educational Computing laboratory in the Department of Computer Science. Primary focus of the work is on the IES-funded SimStudent project.
ISLS is searching for new Editor(s) of Journal of the Learning Sciences (JLS) for 2021–2024. Letters of intent are due February 2, 2020; full proposals are due March 15, 2020.
Resource & Tech Corner
The NSF-funded STEM Teacher Leadership Network invites leaders, aspiring teacher leaders, as well as researchers and administrators interested in teacher leadership to join, view, interact, and connect with this new virtual learning community and collegial network. The free membership provides access to networking tools, resources, and events throughout the year to help members explore topics related to STEM teacher leadership. Members share their paths, challenges, strategies, opportunities, events, and resources with each other.
The new STEM for All Multiplex contains over 850 short video presentations of federally funded projects aimed at improving STEM teaching and learning. Browse and comment on videos, create and share playlists with colleagues, and take part in discussions, webinars, and other activities related to the Theme of the Month. If you want to share a video in the Multiplex with colleagues, use the share link to share on Facebook and Twitter.
Interested in cutting-edge stories about learning sciences research? Subscribe to Digital Promise’s new Learning Sciences Connections newsletter and find out more about the intersections between education research and powerful learning.
EdSurge has posted its 2020 US Higher Education Technology Conferences Calendar with dozens of events across the country (including SXSW EDU in Austin, ASU GSV in San Diego, and ISTE in Anaheim), as well as its 2020 US K-12 Education Technology Conference Calendar with nearly 80 events, to get you started on planning your next conference or educational opportunity. The calendars includes links to the event pages where you can find the most current information for each conference.
Books & Publications
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy report 2016-2019 Progress Report on Advancing Artificial Intelligence Research and Development details U.S. Government AI activities and breakthroughs across various R&D strategic priorities such as long-term fundamental research, the development of technical standards, understanding of ethical and societal implications of AI, developing safe and secure AI systems, and examining workforce needs. This report represents part of the overall progress being made in the context of the American AI Initiative.
Y. Gil and B. Selman (2019). A 20-Year Community Roadmap for Artificial Intelligence Research in the US. Computing Community Consortium (CCC) and Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI). This report is the result of a community activity (three NSF-funded workshops) to identify opportunities, challenges, and pitfalls and formulate AI research priorities for the next 20 years. The agenda is motivated by a broad range of societal drivers aiming to improve health, education, science, innovation, justice, and security.
Have a recent publication or article about your cyberlearning project, or that you think the community should know about? Let us know and we’ll announce it here!
Share Your News
Have some news (project highlights, publications, job opportunities, etc.) that you want to share? Contact CIRCL.
Subscribe to the CIRCL Newsletter
CIRCL is supported by NSF grants IIS-1233722, IIS-1441631, and IIS-1556486. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.