by Jean Moore

Researchers at Vanderbilt's Learning Technology Center and three partner institutions have been awarded a series of grants from the National Science Foundation to create a "virtual" Center for Innovative Learning Technologies (CILT).

The new center will serve as a national resource for stimulating the development and broad implementation of technology-enabled solutions for K-14 science, math, engineering and technology learning, according to LTC Co-Director John Bransford. CILT also will train postdoctoral students to use the latest technology, support a community-wide dialogue about the future of educational technology and work to increase public awareness about new research findings.

The grants provide a total of $1.45 million per year of core support to the four partners for an initial period of four years. The project's headquarters will be based at SRI International, a research, technology development and consulting firm based in Menlo Park, Calif.

In addition to Vanderbilt and SRI, the other founding partners of the new enterprise are the University of California at Berkeley and the Concord Consortium, a non-profit organization that specializes in developing educational applications of computer networking. Each of the partners will contribute to the center's leadership, core functions and project activities.

"This project brings together pioneers and experts in the fields of computer science, engineering, education and technology," Bransford said. A professor of education and Centennial Professor of Psychology, he added that the most exciting aspect of the new venture is the opportunity for him and his colleagues to collaborate with technology partners that have a variety of strengths.

"SRI's strength is networking and speech recognition technologies. Berkeley is concentrating on visualization technologies, letting people see things visually in a computer environment. The Concord Consortium has done a lot of work with upper grades, 9 through 12, and they've also done a lot of work in scientific instrumentation, such as networking schools so they can conduct experiments jointly.

"The major role that Peabody and the Learning Technology Center will play is providing technology tools for curriculum assessment, based on the research on SMART learning environments that we've been working on for a number of years," Bransford said. "We'll also be handling the Web site and communications."

Bransford will be joined in the project by Susan Goldman, Ted Hasselbring and Nancy Vye, also co-directors of the Learning Technology Center, and Peabody Dean James Pellegrino. Gautam Biswas, Vanderbilt associate professor of computer science, of computer engineering and of management of technology, also will be involved with the project, helping with Java-based tool development.

Vanderbilt Chancellor Joe B. Wyatt and other prominent members of the education community and technology industry will serve on an advisory board to guide the quality, relevance and outreach of the center's efforts.

The center will collaborate with private corporations and with schools, universities, and other educational and research organizations.

An initial planning workshop for the CILT industry program last summer attracted representatives of more than 40 diverse corporations, including computer hardware, software, media, education, entertainment and telecommunications organizations.

An extensive school partnership program will focus on technology projects to help teachers enhance the range and depth of learners' inquiries with more powerful tools, help students visualize and model complex situations and data, and support alternative, authentic methods of evaluating student performance.

"Theme teams," working together in national workshops and online discussions, will be organized in four initial areas of opportunities: software to support electronic learning communities, visualization and modeling, increasing students' access to inexpensive computer hardware and software, and assessment.

In addition to Wyatt, members of the advisory board include Susan Carey, professor of cognitive sciences at New York University; John Gage, director of the Science Office for Sun Microsystems; Raymond Lane, president and CEO of Oracle; Becky Morgan, CEO of Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network; Lew Platt, CEO of Hewlett-Packard; Andrew Porter, director of the National Institute for Science Education; Waldemar Rojas, San Francisco superintendent of schools; and Lee Shulman, president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.