Professional Development Opportunity for Faculty:

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The Georgia Southern Colloquium on Teaching, sponsored by
Georgia Southern University's Center for Excellence in Teaching
(with assistance from the Board of Regents Office of Advanced Learning
Technologies), announces its first speaker in the AY02 series:

Dr. John Bransford, Vanderbilt University
"When Learning Sciences MEET Classroom and Technology: Issues and
Opportunity"

Thursday, September 6, 2001
4:00 p.m. in the College of Education Auditorium,
Georgia Southern University
Light refreshments will be served in the auditorium entrance foyer
before the presentation.

Each of you is invited to participate (at no charge) in this
colloquium experience on September 6.
To register, email Alison Morrison-Shetlar (aims@gasou.edu). Please
circulate this invitation to departments at your institution and encourage
a group of faculty and staff to attend. We look forward to seeing you at
Georgia Southern! Jessica Somers

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Presenter Biography:

John D. Bransford is Centennial Professor of Psychology and Education
and Co-Director of the Learning Technology Center at Vanderbilt University.
Early work by Bransford and his colleagues in the 1970s included
research in the areas of human learning, memory and problem solving, and helped
shape the "cognitive revolution" in Psychology. An author of seven books
and hundreds of articles and presentations, Bransford is an
internationally renowned scholar in the areas of cognition and technology.
In 1984 Bransford was asked by the Dean of Peabody College at Vanderbilt
to help begin a Learning Technology Center that would focus on education.
The Center has grown from 7 people in 1984 to approximately 70. During that
time, Bransford and his colleagues have developed and tested a number of
innovative computer, videodisc, CD Rom and Internet programs for
mathematics, science and literacy. Examples include the Jasper Woodbury
Problem Solving Series in Mathematics, The Scientists in Action Series,
and the Little Planet Literacy Series, Many of these programs are being used
in schools throughout the world.

Bransford and his colleagues have won numerous awards. His Ph.D.
dissertation won honorable mention in the national "Creative Talent
Awards" Contest; several of his published articles (co-authored with colleagues)
have won "article of the year" awards in the areas of science education
and technology. The Little Planet Literacy Series, which Bransford helped
develop, has won major awards including the 1996 Technology and Learning
Award and the 1997 Cody award for Best Elementary Curriculum from the
Software Publishers Association.

Bransford and his colleagues are partners in a Technology Challenge
Grant awarded to the Nashville School System. This project uses the
technologyprograms that Bransford and his colleagues have developed,
plus programs developed elsewhere, to restructure k-12 education according to
research-based principles of human learning. The Young Children Literacy
Series plays an especially important role in the Challenge Grant by
providing the basis of a "Great Beginnings" project in Nashville that
links homes, schools and members of the broader community through innovative
uses of technology. Bransford and his colleagues are also developing "The
Education Connection" for an exciting internet project that provides Web
pages and links to each of the 106,000 K-12 schools in the country.
Called "The American Schools Directory", its goals include revitalizing
education through innovative uses of the internet, and re-establishing
"school-centered communities" that are connected to the world.

Bransford is currently co-chair of a National Academy of Science
committee on "New Development in the Science of Learning". The goal is to
synthesize new findings from research to create a "user friendly" theory
of human learning. Issues of using technology to create learning
communities are prominent in this work. Bransford has also been elected to
membership in the National Academy of Education. Membership in the academy is
imited to 125 persons whose accomplishments in the field of education
are judged to be outstanding.

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