toolsLAB is headed by Dr. Aditya Johri (Ph.D., Stanford), Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech, with support from wonderful students and collaborators at Virginia Tech and other institutions. Research at toolsLAB is funded in part by NSF(IIS, EEC), ICTAS, corporate partners, and the Department of Engineering Education.

At the technology, open organizing, & learning sciences laboratory (toolsLAB) we examine how digital tools afford new ways of reorganizing knowledge sharing and knowledge building and impact on learning and work practices. Through a fundamental understanding of the change occurring within the engineering profession and education, we aim to design tools and technologies to prepare innovative future engineers and to support their work practices. Here is a list and brief description of our current projects:

In this project we are investigating new foms of organizing that span global locations to understand their differences from location-based, although technology intensive, practices. We are currently working with a corporate partner to compare and contrast traditional software development and open source software development. This follows work we have done comparing geographically distributed R&D and innovation. Undergraduate Research Assistant : Vismay Shah (ISE), Past Graduate Research Assistant: Varun Ramdas

 

In this NSF sponsored project we are examining the effect of digital tools on creativity within the context of constrained activities, such as engineering design (co-PIs: Vinod Lohani & Deborah Tatar). In particular, we are studying how the affordance of technology – in this case Tablet PCs – for concurrent creation and sharing of digital representations (organizing) affects creativity and innovation. The design and development of artifacts is increasingly being undertaken globally by converting prototypes and specimens into digital images and this project aims to understand the digital aspect of design practices. The design activity used for this project is the design of renewable energy sources and infrastructure for a farm in New Hampshire which is off the grid. Graduate Research Assistants: Andrea Goncher (Ph.D., Engineering Education), Shreya Kothaneth (M.S., ISE), James Pembridge (Ph.D., Engineering Education) XCITED Homepage

 

In the vtkn project we are developing new tools and models of interdiscipimary knowledge building through social network analysis. We are working on different metrics for measuring and drawing of networks looking for sources that help us combine and map both formal and informal networks (VTKN, funded by ICTAS, co-PI: Alan Wang) and network and field study data. The goal of this proejct is to understand the emergence of interdisciplinary collaboration among academics and academic units at Virginia Tech to understand how knowledge networks form at the organizational level (VTKN, funded by ICTAS). Graduate Research Assistant: Xiaomo Liu (Ph.D., Computer Science)

 

The overarching theme of technology and organizing undergirds out attempt to reorganize the current advising practices for engineering students by using Wikis-based systems. This is project is funded by NSF (EEC) and Dr. Jenny Lo is a co-PI on this project. Within the realm of education and learning, old models of same place teaching are giving way to anywhere and anyplace learning supported by digital availability of resources – both information and people – to support the learning process. And this project is a step towards understanding and designing technology-based practices. This project is in the planning process and will start in January 2009.

Lab Members

Andrea Goncher

Xiaomo Liu

Shreya Kothaneth

James Pembridge