LiDA Center – Year 1 Report (April 2018-May 2019)

1.  UR Online Learning (Strategic Initiative B): The LiDA Center made the following contributions to growing and improving online learning opportunities at the UR:

• Continuing to support the growth of Warner online offerings – an initiative that has increased access to Warner courses to students with time and distance constraints, while maintaining their high quality.(See increase in Warner online courses and Number of students taking Warner online courses since the Warner Online Initiative was launched in 2013, and in particular its continuous growth over the period covered by this report).
• Supported the redesign of several K-12 leadership courses from face-to-face to a hybrid-online format, as part of the launch of the new Southern Tier’s low residency program preparing K-12 school leaders – an initiative that opened up new opportunities for rural teachers in the Southern Tier interested in pursuing an administrative career. To date, 18 students have already enrolled in this program.
• Supported the UR College of Arts, Sciences and Engineering launch of its first online summer courses by providing training to all but one of those instructors through the special UR Faculty Course Sequence.
• Supported the creation of new online courses that will lead to a new online program in Public Health.
• The Committee On Online Learning (COOL), chaired by LiDA Director Fredericksen (in his role as the UR Associate Vice-President for Online Learning) and comprising of representatives of all UR academic units, has continued to be a vehicle for conversations about online learning and teaching across the University.
• Contributed 10 new courses/professional development offerings for the University outside of Warner, as designed by students in EDE486.
• UR undergraduate students benefited from the integration of AR/VR experiences in undergraduate engineering courses designed by Warner faculty April Leuhmann in collaboration with the engineering faculty teaching those courses, as part of her Bridging Fellowship in Spring 2019.

2. K-12 Digital Consortium (Strategic Initiative C): LiDA Directors Borasi and Miller led the “rebooting” of the K-12 Digital Consortium– a collaboration between the LiDA Center and K-12 school districts in the Rochester region interested in transforming teaching practices by leveraging digital technology –  including in particular the following achievements during the time period covered by this report:

• Reconstituted the Consortium Steering Committee, and gained its approval for the idea of “incubating” the Consortium within the LiDA Center.
• Developed clear expectations and processes for membership, documented on the new website.
• 17 district/BOCES members officially joined the Consortium, in addition to the original “founders” (see complete list of Consortium members to date).
• Offered two key workshops, targeted mainly to members’ leadership teams – as described in more details in Goal #1c.
• Re-designed the Consortium website.
• Started a K-12 Digital Consortium Twitter account

3. Noyce Master Teacher Fellows (MTF) Digitally-Rich grantproject: This 5-year $3M grant from NSF, launched in collaboration with the Center for Professional Development and Education Reform in summer 2018, will prepare 20 math and science “master teachers” to provide leadership in 6 high-need districts engaging in technology innovations.  Each MTF will complete an Advanced Certificate in Digitally-Rich Teaching in K-12 Schools and an Advanced Certificate in Teacher Leadership at Warner (for a minimum of 42 credits per MTF) (see  program description).  Major accomplishments in this first year of the grant included:

• Initial investments to develop the leadership team.
• Participants’ recruitment, which included an innovative “recruiting workshop” and resulted in securing 21 teacher-leaders-in-training, who have all started the program in Spring 2019.
• Redesigned in a hybrid-online format and offered in Spring 2019 the first STEM education course.

4. AccelerateU Online Learning Coordinators initiative: The LiDA Center is supporting AccelerateU (an organization within Wayne Finger Lakes BOCES that acts as a clearing house and support for online high school courses in the region) in developing a cadre of “Online Learning Coordinators” (OLCs) – an emerging new role within K-12 school districts, intended to support high school students taking online courses.  Recognizing that many high school students taking online courses fail to complete them because they are not used to the independent and self-directed learning these courses require, AccelerateU secured a 3-year New York State Learning Technology Grant (NYS LTG) to support this initiative, and contracted with the LiDA Center to co-design and co-teach the professional development program.  An initial 2-day training (purposefully including some online components) was offered to a total of 34 participants from over 20 different districts.

5. Design of Warner “low residency programs”: LiDA Director Borasi tool a leadership role in identifying 5 Advanced Certificate, 15 Master’s and 2 Ed.D. programs at Warner that could be completed by international students with minimum residency in Rochester. She also created materials about each of these programs to be shared with Wuhan and Nanjing Universities in China as part of a May 2018 trip to China, organized to establish a formal collaboration between these universities and the University of Rochester.

1. Courses on digitally-rich teaching: Provided high-quality training in blended and/or online teachingthrough graduate courses taught at Warner for a total of 567 credits (see brief descriptions for each of these LiDA courses):

• EDE484: Online Teaching & Learning (29 students)
• EDE486: Designing Online Courses (32 students)
• EDF488: Online Teaching Practicum (16 students)
• EDE470: Topics in Online Teaching (for UR faculty only) (4 students)
• EDE471: Topics in Online Course Design (for UR faculty only) (6 students)
• EDE484A: Digitally-Rich Teaching & Learning in K-12 Schools (18 students)
• EDF490: K-12 Digitally-Rich Teaching Practicum (8 students)
• EDE492: Integrating Technology in Teaching Content Areas (combined with related discipline-specific courses: EDU 481, 483, 486, 499) (19 students)
• EDU497: Teaching & Learning in Higher Education & Health Care Settings (25 students)
• EDE410: Learning in the Digital Age (10 students)
• EDE546: Teaching & Learning STEM (21 students)
• EDE545: Leadership Seminar in Digitally-Rich STEM Teaching (21 students)

NOTE: Courses marked with an asterisk were offered specifically for Noyce MTFs, for a total of 84 credits this year (see Goal 1a, #3 for more information about this project).

2. Professional development [PD] for K-12 teachers:

• As part of the already mentioned NYS Learning Technology Grant awarded to AccelerateU, LiDA Directors Borasi and Miller also designed a ½ day introductory workshop on blended teaching.  This workshop will be offered multiple times during Summer and Fall 2019 as part of this grant, and we also aim to continue to offer it independently through BOCES once support from the original grant ends.

3. Professional development [PD] for higher education [HE] instructors:

• In his role as Associate Vice-President for Online Learning, Eric Fredericksen organized three public symposia in Fall 2018 (see Fall Colloquiafor more information), as well as a series of workshops open to UR faculty in Spring 2019 (see Spring Workshop Series).

4. Noyce Digitally-Rich Scholarship grant project: This 5-year $1.2M grant from the National Science Foundation [NSF], which provides full scholarships to pre-service math and science teachers who also complete an Advanced Certificate in Digitally-Rich Teaching in K-12 Schools, was launched in Spring 2018 (see brief description). Major accomplishments in this first year included:

• 5 students were recruited for cohort 1 (and started their program in Summer 2018).
• 4 students were recruited for cohort 2 (who will be starting in Summer 2019).

1. Professional development [PD] for K-12 leaders: As part of the already mentioned rebooting of the K-12 Digital Consortium (see Goal #1a.1), Raffaella Borasi and Dave Miller designed and offered the following free workshops, targeting mainly the leadership teams within the consortium member districts:

• Kick-Off Workshop: Offered in February 2019 to over 70 participants from 20 districts.
• Leadership Workshop:Designed and offered for the first time in May 2019 to a group of over 50 participants from 12 member districts.

1.  Research on leadership in online education in higher education: Recognizing the key role played by higher education leaders for online teaching and learning in their institution, LiDA Director Fredericksen has been a pioneer in studying higher education leadership’s practices vis-a-vis online education.  His work this year resulted in the following products:

• Fredericksen, E., (forthcoming) Leadership for Online Learning in US Higher Education, a book chapter in Leading the e-Learning Transformation of Higher Education, Stylus Publishing
• Fredericksen – Online learning leadership in US Higher Education at:Open SUNY Summit – March 2019 – Syracuse, NY
• Fredericksen, Garrett, & Legon – What we know about online learning leadership at: EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative – February 2019 – Anaheim, CA
• Legon, Garrett & Fredericksen – Achieving Online Learning Success: Contrasting Institutional Models at: OLC Accelerate Conference on Online Learning – November 2018 – Orlando, FL
• Legon, Fredericksen& Garrett – Chief Online Learning Officers Perspectives on Management, Governance & Quality Assurance: Quality Matters Conference – October 2018 – St. Louis, MO
• Fredericksen – OLC Leadership Network:  A National Collaboration of Senior Leadersat: OLC Innovate Conference on Online Learning – April 2018 – Nashville, TN

2. CHLOE Report: LiDA Director Fredericksen has been one of the author of this annual report on the state of online education in higher education.  In addition to the 2019 report itself, this work led to the following publications and presentations in the period covered by this report:

• Garrett, R., Legon, R. & Fredericksen, E., (2019). CHLOE 3 Behind the Numbers: The Changing Landscape of Online Education 2019. Retrieved from Quality Matters website: qualitymatters.org/qa–resources/resource–center/articles–resources/CHLOE–3–report–2019
• Legon, Fredericksen, Mughees, DiGuisto, Kilgore & Wright – How Online Learning Trends Inform Online Management Companies (OPMs) at:Quality Matters Conference – April 2019 – New York, NY

3. Research on youth digital literacy: LiDA Director Lammers has continued to study youth digital literacy as it takes place in a variety of informal online spaces, as a way to better understand the learning potential of specific digital literacy practices that youth seem to use spontaneously and with great success on their own. Her research has generated the following publications and presentations in the period covered by this report:

• Lammers, J. C. (2018, April). Examining an adolescent writer’s networked audience practices across contexts: Insights from a longitudinal case study. Paper presented in symposium: The Critical Role of Audience in Digital Writing at the American Educational Research Association annual meeting, New York City, NY.
• Lammers, J. C. (2018, April). Learning from the connected writer: Implications for writing studies. Poster presented in session titled: Taking the Long View: Learning from Longitudinal Studies of Writing at the American Educational Research Association annual meeting, New York City, NY.
• Lammers, J. C., Magnifico, A. M., & Curwood, J. S. (2019, March). Looking back and thinking ahead: Charting new directions in online fanfiction research. Presentation as part of the invited colloquium “Fandom and Language and Literacy Development” at the American Association for Applied Linguistics annual conference in Atlanta, GA.
• Lammers, J. C. (2019, February 9). Why digital matters: Considering the authentic language learning opportunities in online spaces. Plenary talk given at the Applied Linguistics Winter Conference at Binghamton University.

4. Research on leveraging the potential of digital literacy in schools: LiDA Director Lammers is also studying how teachers could leverage students’ interest in a range of technologies, including digital media and online communities, generating the following publications and presentations in the period covered by this report:

• Huang, T. & Lammers, J. C. (2018). A qualitative inquiry of video learning by Chinese L2 learners: Learning internalization, understanding social realities, and reflecting on challenges. CSL: Chinese as a Second Language, 53(3), 257-294. https://doi.org/10.1075/csl.18004.hua
• Lammers, J. C., & Van Alstyne, J. H. (2019). Building bridges from classrooms to networked publics: Helping students write for the audience they want. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 62(6), 653-662. DOI: 10.1002/jaal.933  
• Lammers, J. C. (2018, September 14). Navigating tensions when connecting classrooms to online communities. Literacy Daily. 
• Lammers, J. C. (2018, November 8). It’s the ethos, not the tech: Pedagogical principles for the digital age. Digital Humanities Lunch talk, University of Rochester.

5. East Irondequoit’s Digital Conversion Case Study; The East Irondequoit Central School District has been a pioneering in the Rochester region, since it started its journey towards digital conversion in 2012 under the leadership of Superintendent Susan Allen and Chief Information Officer Joe Sutorius. The LiDA Center has committed to conduct a case study of this experience, as a way to documents key decisions made, challenges encountered, and lessons learned that could benefit other districts embarking in similar 1:1 initiatives. During the time period covered by this report, the following accomplishments were achieved:

• We secured approval from East Irondequoit’s leadership and RSRB for data collection.
• 7 video interviews with key players were completed to date, with the goal of developing multi-media documents to be posted on the k12digital.org website as a way to document and disseminate this district’s successful efforts in ways more accessible to and usable for practitioners

6. Study of AR/VR use in undergraduate engineering courses;  As part of her Spring 2019 Bridging Fellowship, April Luehmann has worked with colleagues in engineering, as well as Warner doctoral students, to collect and analyze data about how students engaged in the AR/VR learning experiences in Bridging Fellowship they designed for a number of undergraduate chemical engineering courses.

1. LiDA Center website (part of Strategic Initiative A):

• Designed the LiDA Center website to include a section intended to provide an introduction to practitioners and researchers about specific topics, based on research findings and lessons learned.
• Created a first example on the topic of “Online Teacher Identity”, as an illustration and an invitation to other experts within the LiDA Community to do the same for other topics (see Online Teacher Identity example – link to Online Teacher Identity page)

2. Lesson learned reported on K12digital.org:

• • The redesign of the K-12 Digital Consortium’s website purposefully included sections where lessons learned from the field can be reported using multi-media.
  • A first illustration on “First Steps when launching a 1:1 initiative” was created, building on the insights shared at the May 2019 K-12 Consortium Leadership Workshop (see this example)

3. LiDA Zotero Bibliography Project: Initiated by LiDA Director Lammers, in collaboration with Eileen Daly-Boas, this project will involve any interested LiDA Community member in creating a collaborative bibliography of work related to learning in the digital age, using a software (Zotero) that will enable tagging for easy search, as well as commentaries from multiple people.

4. Other innovative dissemination products:

• Contributed a video for the NSF “STEM for ALL Video Conference” about the Noyce MTF-Digitally-Rich project (focused on the K12-University partnership we established with the K-12 Digital Consortium)

1. Developing research methods to study learning in online spaces: LiDA Director Lammers, along with other colleagues and Warner students, has been working on identifying methodological and ethical issues that arise when conducting educational research in online spaces, also offering some solutions and research innovations. The following publications and presentations have been generated in the period covered by this report:

• Curwood, J. S., Lammers, J. C., Magnifico, A. M., & Stornaiuolo, A., (2019). Ethical dilemmas within online literacy research. Literacy Research: Theory, Method and Practice, 68(1), 293-313. https://doi.org/10.1177/2381336919870264
• Magnifico, A. M., Lammers, J. C., & Curwood, J. S. (2019). Developing methods to trace participation patterns across online writing. Learning, Culture, and Social Interaction. [early online] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lcsi.2019.02.013
• Lammers, J. C. (2018, November). Respect as a guidepost in ethical online literacy research. Paper presented in the Ethical Considerations in Online Literacy Research symposium at the Literacy Research Association annual conference, Indian Wells, CA.
• Lammers, J. C., Stornaiuolo, A., Verhoeven, Y., & McGuinness, S. (2018, October). Trolls, stalkers, and flamers, oh my! Revisiting ethical decision-making internet research in light of ever-changing online practices. Roundtable presented at Association of Internet Researchers Conference, Montreal, Canada.
• Magnifico, A. M., Curwood, J. S., & Lammers, J. C. (2018, July 4). Addressing methodological challenges: A new approach to tracing participation patterns in online writing. Talk given at the Centre for Research in Digital Education: School of Education at University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

2. Implications of machine learning for scientific inquiry: LiDA Directors Borasi and Miller, along with LiDA Community members Zhen Bai and Mike Daley, have been exploring how machine learning may provide new ways to generate as well as to test hypothesis as part of scientific inquiry – and the implications this may have for what we teach about scientific inquiry in schools and college — as part of the LiDA Working Group on Machine Learning & Scientific Inquiry.

1. Publications, presentations and internet presence:

• A total of 6 publications and 15 presentations to date have recognized affiliation with and/or support from the LiDA Center (see items marked with an asterisk in the list of LiDA products).
• Launched the LiDA Center website (link to https://www.rochester.edu/warner/lida/), including several sections showcasing the Center’s work and accomplishments (see in particular the ABOUT, SERVICES and PROGRAMS sections) (Strategic Initiative B)
• Launched the k12digital.org website (link to k12digital.org); the collaboration with the LiDA Center is made very explicit in the title itself.

2. Participation in conferences and events:

• NSF 2019 STEM for All Video Showcase (LINK to main page):  Borasi, Borys, Callard, Carson, Daley, and Miller participated in this May 2019 “virtual conference”, along with over 240 other NSF awardees nationwide. The video (link to our video) we submitted about the Noyce MTF-DR project (focusing on the K12-university partnership created with the K-12 Digital Consortium – see also GOAL#2b) received over 560 views.  The LiDA Community members listed above also engaging online with other participants and presenters, making a few connections with other research groups that we plan to further explore over the next year.
• AR/VR events jointly organized by UR and RIT: April Luehmann, along with LiDA Director Borasi, participated in the following events:
  • UR/RIT AR/VR Initiative Meeting and Discussion (October 1, 2018)
  • RIT FRAMELESS Conference (Fall 2018)

3. Contributions to increasing the LiDA Center’s visibility within the University of Rochester:

• LiDA Director Fredericksen’s organized several well attended activities and events in his dual role as Associate Vice-President for Online University for the entire university. This included the 2018 fall Online learning Symposium series, the 2019 spring faculty workshops.
• April Luehmann was awarded a prestigious Bridging Fellowship from the University of Rochester to spend Spring 2019 with the Hajim School of Engineering to collaborate on AR/VR initiatives.
• 14 LiDA Colloquia were organized in the 2018-19 academic year and advertised across the University of Rochester through @rochester (the UR daily e-newsletter).

4. Contributions to increasing the LiDA Center’s visibility in the region:

• LiDA Directors Borasi and Miller have played a very visible role in the K-12 Digital Consortium (involving 17 school districts and three BOCES in the region).

5. Contributions to increasing the LiDA Center’s visibility nationally and internationally:

• LiDA Associate Director Eric Fredericksen has served as the 2019 President of the Board of the Online Learning Consortium (OLC), the premiere professional organizations on online education. This recognition and honor draws unique attention to the Warner School at the University of Rochester and reflects on the national reputation of a key player in the LiDA Center.
• LiDA Associate Director Jayne Lammers was awarded a Fulbright U.S. Scholar grant to conduct research in Indonesia on youth digital literacy practices (to take place in Fall 2019) — increasing the LiDA international visibility

1. Growth in LiDA community members:Secured 22 new LiDA community members (in addition to 7 current staff members), after finalizing and making public decisions about LiDA Community expectations (as listed in the LiDA Community section of the Center website).

2. LiDA website and communication plan (Strategic Initiative A):

• Designed and launched in May 2019 the LiDA Center website – including a Shared Resources-LINK section created to provide the opportunity to LiDA community members to share information about their projects, work products, and valued resources.
• Started a K-12 Digital Consortium Twitter account, and linked that to the LiDA website until we have an active Twitter account more specific to the Center.

3. LiDA Center events organized:

• Redesigned the LiDA Colloquium Series, and offered a total of 14 sessions.
• Held two “Zotero Working Sessions” to introduce the Zotero software and have interested LiDA Community members work together to begin to contribute to a collaborative Zotero LiDA Bibliography.

4. Active LiDA Working Groups:

• Mastermind Groups: We decided to explore the practice, used by a number of successful entrepreneurs, of establishing a small peer group of individuals with a common interest, who commit to regular meetings to share experiences and provide input on each other’s ideas). We successfully piloted a first Mastermind Group involving all LiDA Directors and three other Warner faculty in the LiDA Community, where everyone committed to meet every other week for 1.5 hours for the entire academic year.
• Learning with XR (A.Luehmann; A.White from Chemical Engineering; several Warner RAs):  April Luehmann (Warner faculty and LiDA Community member) started this working group with Chemical Engineering faculty Andrew White and other UR faculty and students prior to the launch of the LiDA Center. , as they worked on an internal grant funded by the UR Provost Office to create a prototype device that would enable chemical engineering students to engage in AR/VR learning experiences.  With some financial support from the LiDA Center (covering for some RAs’ hours) as well as a Bridging Fellowship awarded to Luehmann for Spring 2019, during the period covered by this report this Working Group has continued to design, implement and study AR/VR learning experiences for UR undergraduate engineering students.
• Machine Learning & Scientific Inquiry (Z. Bai – Computer Science; R. Borasi; M. Daley; D. Miller; RA X.Wan):  Preliminary conversations with Zhen Bai, a UR faculty in Computer Science interested in applications of machine learning to education, let to the creation of this Working Group.  The Group initially focused on preparing a grant proposal for NSF STEM+C program (due May 2019), but decided to continue to work together even after this proposal was declined.

5. On-going active collaborations: The following existing collaborations were maintained and/or expanded:

• AccelerateU (an organization within Wayne Finger Lakes BOCES that acts as a clearing house and support for online high school courses in the region): (an organization within Wayne F BOCES):  Prior to the official launch of the LiDA Center, AccelerateU included LiDA Director Miller as a key professional development provider in a proposal for a NYS Learning Technology Grant.  This grant was awarded in early 2019, and at that point AccelerateU asked the LiDA Center to provide a few additional services besides the ones originally planned in the proposal (increasing the contract for year 1 to $67,000).

6. New collaborations: New collaborations were explored with the following individuals/groups:

• Zhen Bai, UR faculty in the Computer Science Department, reached out to the LiDA Center looking for collaborators in projects involving the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning to education. This led to the creation of the “Machine Learning and Scientific Inquiry” Working Group mentioned above.
• Gloria Jacobs, a Warner alumna who is now on the faculty of Portland State University(OR), reached out to the LiDA Center to explore possible collaborations around developing digital literacy for vulnerable populations as a way to increase their access to health care.
• Wordsmyth: Robert Parks, founder and CEO of Wordsmyth (an Ithaca-based ed-tech company that has produced, among other things, an online interactive dictionary), asked the LiDA Center to partner in a Small Business Innovation and Research (SBIR) grant proposal to the Department of Education. The proposed project involved some enhancements to make their online dictionary more easily accessible and useful to K-5 elementary teachers. Although the grant was not awarded, Wordsmyth decided to proceed anyway with implementing some of these enhancements.
• Teachers Connect: LiDA Director Miller negotiated with Teachers Connect (an ed tech start-up company) to start a “private” online community for our Noyce MTF Digitally-Rich project, as well as an open “K-12 Digital” online community using their online platform
• Charles Graham (Brigham Young University) and Jered Borup (George Washington University); co-authors of an e-book to prepare blended teachers): LiDA Director Miller initiated a couple of Zoom conversations with Dr. Graham and Dr. Boruyp to explore possible collaborations.
• ASSISTments project (Worcester Polytechnic Institute; exploring ways to leverage digital technology to support assessment in K-12 schools):  LiDA Director Miller initiated a couple of Zoom conversations with Worcester faculty involved in this project. to explore possible collaborations.
• SafeSide Prevention:  Dr. Tony Pisani, a UR Medical Center faculty and founder and CEO of SafeSidePrevention (a UR spin-off to provide high quality training on suicide prevention), contacted the LiDA Center to seek advice and support in redesigning of their “distance” professional developments programs on suicide prevention for youth services and health care professionals.  This led to a first paid consultation in May 2019, followed by a small contract for the next year.

1. LiDA Center staff working on infrastructure and unfunded core LiDA Center’s initiatives:

• LiDA Director (R. Borasi): 10% FTE June-Dec.2018 + 50% FTE Jan.-Jun.2019 (while on research leave supported by the University of Rochester)
• LiDA Associate Director for Higher Education (E. Fredericksen): 5% FTE
• LiDA Associate Director for K-12 Education (D. Miller): 10% FTE
• LiDA Associate Director for Informal Education (J. Lammers): 25% summer
• RAs playing select Assistant Director’s functions (Y.J. Han; L. Dang; X. Wan): ~25% FTE Jan.-Jun.2019
• Other RA support (X. Wan; S. Hafsa): ~50% FTE

2. Personnel working on funded LiDA initiatives: (NOTE: LiDA Community members have been marked with an asterisk)

• *R. Borasi: 12% FTE June-Dec.2018 on Noyce MTD-DR grant + co-teaching 2 LiDA course & directing HPE program (covered by Warner)
• *E. Fredericksen: 5% FTE on supporting online teaching at Warner + teaching 4 LiDA courses & supervising online teaching practicum + directing Online Teaching program (covered by Warner)
• *D. Miller: 15% FTE on Noyce MTD-DR grant + 5% FTE on K-12 Consortium (covered by previous mini-grant) + teaching 2 LiDA courses & digitally-rich practicum supervision + directing Digitally-Rich Teaching program & program advisor for Digitally-Rich Teaching and Online Teaching programs (covered by Warner)
• *J. Lammers: Teaching 1 LiDA course + most of her research time (covered by Warner)
• *A. Luehmann: 100% FTE Jan-May 2019 (UR Bridging Fellowship) + 10% on Noyce Scholarship grant
• *M.Daley: 15% FTE on Noyce MTD-DR grant + HPE Program advisor (covered by Warner)
• *C. Callard: 12% FTE on Noyce MTD-DR grant + co-teaching an MTF LiDA course & leadership seminar (covered by Warner)
• *M. Occhino: 30% FTE on Noyce MTD-DR grant + co-teaching an MTF LiDA course & leadership seminar (covered by Warner)
• *Z. Borys: 20% FTE on Noyce MTD-DR grant + Teaching 1 credit LiDA course (covered by Warner)
• *C. Carson: 20% FTE on Noyce MTD-DR grant
• S. Martin: 10% FTE on Noyce MTD-DR grant
• M. Staloff: 15% FTE on Noyce MTD-DR grant
• J. Choppin: 5% FTE + 50% summer course on Noyce Scholarship grant
• *L. Brown: Teaching 3 LiDA courses & online teaching practicum (covered by Warner)
• L. Warner: ~16% on Noyce MTD-DR grant
• *H. Boyle (RA): 320 hours on Noyce MTD-DR grant
• E. Desser (RA): 160 hours on Noyce MTD-DR grant
• RAs on AR/VR mini-grant: total of 320 hours

3. New gifts secured to support the LiDA Center’s infrastructure and unfunded core initiatives:

• Secured a 3-year gift of $50K/year from theGeorge L. Schultz Family Fund to support a part-time Assistant Director (with the agreement that we would initially “pilot” potential functions associated with this role with a combination of doctoral students for the first year) (starting Jan.2019)
• Received a $10K gift from the Scandling Family Foundation that partially supported the launch of the LiDA Center website
• Received a total of ~$20K in George Eastman Circle and other recurring gifts

4. New grants and contracts:

• Finalized an augmented contract for Year 1 of AccelerateU NYS Learning Technology grantfor a total of $67,000.
• $1,000 contract with Wordsmythto support grant application.
• Secured a UR Bridging Fellowshipfor A.Luehmann AR/VR work (which fully covered her salary and benefits for Spring 2019).

5. Fund-raising initiatives:

• Participated in the design of the “Case for Support of the Centers at Warner” executed by University Advancement.
• LiDA Director Lammers submitted a proposal for a Fulbright U.S. Scholar grant to take place in Indonesia for the 2019-20 academic year ($22,750 awarded, plus research leave from the University of Rochester)
• SBIR Phase I proposal submitted to the U.S. Department of Education in collaboration with Wordsmyth ($200,000; not awarded)
• Grant proposal submitted to the National Science Foundation STEM+C program, in collaboration with Zhen Bai (Computer Science) and Mike Daley (Center for Professional Development and Education Reform) ($1.5M; not awarded)

6. Developing Warner doctoral students capacity (Strategic Initiative E):

• A few doctoral students took EDE410: Learning in the Digital Age
• Launched the LiDA Zotero Bibliography project
• Supported X. Wan in pursuing an M.S. in Data Science alongside her Ph.D. program