PETTT Spring Forum 2000:
Towards Integrating the Sciences and Technologies of Learning for Education

This symposium is sponsored by the UW's Program for Educational Transformation through Technology (PETTT), a UIF-funded program intended to help faculty by creating a campus-wide framework for the exploration of next-generation technologies and strategies for teaching and learning.

Keynote 1: Dr. Roy Pea Director, Center for Technology in Learning at SRI International Towards Integrating the Sciences and Technologies of Learning for Education Dr. Pea's work involves trying to help create a seamless network between advances in technology, knowledge and learning. One of his aims it to create a national knowledge network for catalyzing best practices and new designs for improving learning with technologies among researchers, schools, and industries.

Keynote 2: Dr. Judy Ramey Professor and chair, Department of Technical Communication, UW Guidelines: Web Data Collection for Understanding and Interacting with Your Users The global growth of the World Wide Web challenges technical communicators to reconsider the methods we use to create designs that meet the goals and needs of our users. This presentation focuses on taking advantage of the Web's potential for interactivity between designers and users. It offers strategies for getting data from users of Web sites and using it for two main purposes: (1) analyzing audience and patterns of use to support continuous redesign, and (2) building a relationship or sense of community on a Web site.

Biographical sketches

Dr. Roy Pea is Director of the Center for Technology in Learning at SRI International, in Menlo Park, California, and Consulting Professor in the School of Education at Stanford University. He also directs the multi-institutional Center for Innovative Learning Technologies, newly funded by the National Science Foundation. One of its aims it to create a national knowledge network for catalyzing best practices and new designs for improving learning with technologies among researchers, schools, and industries. He was a John Evans Professor of Education and the Learning Sciences at Northwestern University (1991-1996), where he founded and chaired the Learning Sciences Ph.D. Program, and served as Dean of the School of Education and Social Policy. He works as a cognitive scientist to integrate theory, research, and the design of effective learning environments using advanced technologies, with particular focus on science, mathematics, and technology. For a write-up from the University of Washington Weekly, please visit: "Pea tells educators that technology can have positive effect on learning."

Dr. Judy Ramey is professor and chair of the department of technical communication and adjunct professor of industrial engineering at UW. As director of TC's Laboratory for Usability Testing and Evaluation, she has conducted usability research, both laboratory testing and field inquiry, for a number of corporate and organizational sponsors on hardware and software products as well as, more recently, Web sites. Her presentation is based on research done in conjunction with TC's 2nd International Summer Workshop, held in Seattle last summer with the theme "Building a Communication Model for Web Design."