Helen Crompton

Current research

iPod Touch

The purpose of this study is to investigate the implementation of a whole school one-to-one iPod Touch project in a middle school in the southeastern United States. While some focused studies have been undertaken in this new field of learning, there has been little research to date that documents activity within a whole school implementation (Chen, Kao, & Sheu, 2003; Conti-Ramsden, Durkin, & Simkin, 2010). Using Rogers (2003) Theory of Diffusion of Innovation as a lens for this research, we are gathering data from observations, focus groups, and interviews. This is a longitudinal, qualitative study which began at the initial implementation of the program in January 2010.

 

Cyberlearning Taxonomy and Synthesis

This project is to assist NSF’s Education and Human Resources (EHR) Directorate in its efforts to review and identify cyberlearning research which is supported by Directorate and to also understand its impact on the advancement of STEM education and training of the next generation of science and engineering professionals. The main tasks of the project are to: 1. Summerize past and ongoing EHR efforts related to identifying cyberlearning awards and assessing EHR's cyberlearning investments. 2. Find all NSF awards funded by EHR that can be broadly described as related to cyberlearning. 3. Describe these awards using relatively standard terms or taxonomies. 4. Outline a repeatable procedure for finding and describing cyberlearning awards that can evolve as our understanding of cyberlearning changes and matures.

As part of this project Crompton created a metadata schema and cataloging tool for award abstracts using CWIS (Collaborative Workflow Information System) toolkit. This is available to the public at http://scout.wisc.edu/demos/cyberlearn/index.php?P=Home

 

Blogging

Pre-service teacher blogs are the focus of this research. The research looks at the affordance of blogging on creating Communities of Practice. The three research questions that drive this study are: 1. Did a community of practice emerge from the addition of students' participation in online practices beyond their traditional classroom instruction? 2. What are the affordances of student teachers participation in a blogging community? 3. In what ways does their participation effect (or not effect) the development of a community of practice?
The blogging studies are also looking at the blogs in relation to the pre-service teachers becoming practicing science teachers.