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In a recent blog post “Reflections on the NNI – Coordination & Partnerships” the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy again cites the CCC:

“A partnership model to effectively engage the research community in agenda-setting is the Computing Community Consortium (CCC). With support from the National Science Foundation, the CCC allows the computer science community to establish a vision for the field and quickly mobilize the community to pursue “big ideas.” Could this type of consortium work for the nanotechnology research community?”

The Department of Education’s National Center for Education Research (NCER) is seeking applications responsive to 14 long-term research programs under its Education Research Grant Programs. Some of these programs are particularly relevant for computing researchers.

For example, the RFA for NCER’s Education Technology program (RFA CDFA 84.305a) states:

To support research on education technology tools that are designed to provide or support instruction in reading, writing, mathematics, or science (including pre-reading, pre-writing, early mathematics, and early science) or to provide professional development for teachers related to instruction in reading, writing, mathematics, or science. The Institute intends to contribute to improvement of reading, writing, mathematics, and science learning by (1) developing innovative education technology tools intended to improve reading, writing, mathematics, science, or general study skills; (2) evaluating fully developed education technology tools intended to improve reading, writing, mathematics, science, or general study skills through efficacy or replication trials; (3) evaluating the effectiveness of fully developed education technology tools intended to improve reading, writing, mathematics, science, or general study skills that are implemented at scale; and (4) developing and/or validating assessments that use education technology and that can be used in instructional settings.

The long-term outcome of this program will be an array of education technology tools that have been documented to be effective for improving reading, writing, mathematics, and science achievement.

The Education Technology program — like all programs under the Education Research Grant Programs — accepts applications twice a year.

For more information about these and other funding opportunities through NCER, check out the center’s FY 2010 RFAs — http://ies.ed.gov/funding/10rfas.asp — and submit a proposal if your research is appropriately aligned.

(Contributed by Chase Hensel, CRA/CCC Tisdale Fellow)

Last Saturday, the New York Times Magazine published the fourth installment in its “Smarter Than You Think” series, this one titled “Students, Meet your New Teacher, Mr. Robot.” The article highlights the use of robots as teachers of young students.

Imbued with boundless patience and ability to recall facts, robots hold promise as effective teachers in high-repetition scenarios such as language class autism therapy. Teams from UCSD, MIT, UConn, etc., are field-testing teaching robots for a variety of uses. The results of these tests have been positive and the future use of robots in the classroom seems likely.

The article also discusses the Holy Grail of artificial intelligence — teaching machines to teach themselves, in the spirit of infant children. It perhaps overstates that we can obtain this Holy Grail in the near future; there’s considerable research and innovation that must come first.

Please check out the feature, and its associated media — the video on Robotic Teaching is particularly exciting.

- Learning to Read People; and

- A timeline detailing the history of Artificial Intelligence.

Share your thoughts — especially those on the future of AI as the article describes it — below.

(Contributed by Chase Hensel, CRA/CCC Tisdale Fellow, & Erwin Gianchandani, CCC Director)

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