|
I am an Assistant
Professor of Social Studies Education at Wake
Forest University, and was formerly a high school
social studies teacher. My research interests focus on the factors
that encourage and barriers that impede integration of technology
into the K-12 social studies environment as well as teacher education.
Click here for a .pdf version of the Guild Leader Study and here for a .pdf version of the paper on Visual Content that were co-presented at CUFA 2008.
A particular
interest of mine is how K-12 social studies teachers use technology,
particularly digital history resources. Among my current research
projects include:
- Student
Websites and Historical Understandings: in this study students
utilize primary and secondary source documents in order to design
and develop social studies-specific websites. This study, which
has taken place over several iterations, uses a quasi-experimental
design in order to measure the effect of Internet use as well
as a constructivist environment on student achievement. Our
studies have demonstrated that students tend to have a difficult
time working with and being able to make meaning from primary
and secondary sources; therefore, in the most current study,
the emphasis has been the
sources being scaffolded for students. This project has been
undertaken along with Dr. Tina Heafner of UNC Charlotte.
- A longitudinal
study of technology use among College and University Faculty
Assembly (CUFA) members,
- The use of MMORPGs within social studies,
- A North
Carolina-wide survey that studies how social studies teachers
utilize the Internet,
- The impact
of Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) on
citizenship education,
- A longitudinal
study of the impact of the National Educational Technology Standards
(NETS)
Along with
John Lee, I am also in the process of editing the forthcoming
book Research in Social Studies and Technology.
|
