Centers, Research, and Labs

Center for Technology and School Change
Website: http://www.tc.columbia.edu/ctsc

The Center for Technology and School Change helps schools integrate technology into their curricula and daily lives, by planning with schools for the use of technology, educating teachers how to use it, planning curriculum projects that include technology, helping teachers to implement projects, and assessing the effect of technology on schools. The Center is based on the idea that technology will have a large impact on the structure of schooling, as it has in the past, and that schools must plan for the kinds of change they want it to have. We believe that technology should be integrated with curriculum in ways that emphasize active student learning, collaboration, interdisciplinary learning and problem-solving in areas that are meaningful to schools, and conducts site-based research.

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Games Research Lab
Website: http://www.tc.edu/mst/ccte/gamesresearchlab/

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iDesign Studio
Website: http://www.tc.edu/academic/mst/ccte/iDesign

As innovators in the fields of both education and technology, students in CCTE adopt the role of reflective practitioner in their research. As such, the body of research available to and being developed by students in Computing, Communications and Educational Technology is often a hybrid between emprical projects and more traditional forms of published knowledge.

When developing projects, students generally are responding to important ideas or beliefs held by colleagues implicitly in their work. They also accumulate knowledge in their design or implementation to build upon knowledge in their field. In an effort to

• make implicit knowledge accumulated in the process of design and implementation more explicit to all CCTE students,
• develop a shared body of resources for students in CCTE to benefit from personally and collectively, and
• offer the community of scholars and developers interested in similar issues,

CCTE students and affiliates have developed a Web presentation of their own intelligent, innovative, and thought-provoking projects.

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Institute for Learning Technologies
Website: http://www.ilt.columbia.edu
The Institute for Learning Technologies (ILT), uses digital communications technologies to advance innovation in education and society. Rapid change in information technology is reconfiguring social, cultural and intellectual possibilities. University research, K-12 and post-secondary education, the arts, community and political activities, and social exchange are all in transition. ILT is a major element of Columbia University's effort to shape these transitions-transitions that are central to the University's mission and practice.

ILT takes education in its broadest sense as its primary area of work. In practice, it promotes an intellectually rigorous progressive education accessible to all. To renew progressivism, educators must pose powerful generative questions in cooperative settings; and limitations on the intellectual resources available to students; enable teachers and students to communicate beyond the classroom; and provide advanced tools of analysis, synthesis and simulation. Increasing the interaction of pre-college and higher education is important. The new technologies provide effective support for such novel interactions. The education of the 21st century will feature extensive collaboration among scholars, teachers, university of students, librarians, museum professionals, community organizers, parents, and children of all ages, and these relationships may span great distances and bridge significant cultural divides.

ILT pursues an integrated program of design, development, implementation, and evaluation.

• School-based projects aim to alter the classroom through infrastructure planning and installation, content and curriculum creation, professional development, technical support, and evaluation.
• Professional development includes workshops on the use of generic and project-specific technologies, seminars on curriculum design and development, and consultations by content experts and instructional technologists.
• Content projects develop multimedia to support innovation in education, delivering high quality intellectual resources and learning tools to students.
• Evaluation projects document the impact of programs and the principles of good design, working with groups in the commercial, governmental, non-profit, and educational sectors.
• Consulting services provide design, development, and strategic analysis for organizations conducting innovative educational projects.
• An internship program provides individuals with experience in school-based projects, professional development workshops, evaluation and policy studies, and content creation. Technology does not drive educational change, but it conditions educational possibility. Rooted in traditions of liberal education, ILT acts on the technological context to renew established educational traditions.

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