Conference: Transforming Educational Technology Through Convergence

The Transforming Educational Technology Through Convergence Conference will convene researchers, funders, developers, and practitioners online to discuss the future of educational technology. In order to maximize impact, the conference will focus on three tracks chosen for both their importance to overall student success and their promise as targets of research and development. These tracks are: course-embedded assessment, middle school math, and data science education.

The learning sciences have advanced considerably, producing significant insights around, for example, spaced learning, social and emotional learning, active learning, and the value of formative feedback. However, learning tools rarely fully integrate these insights. Nor do developers typically build tools in a robust research environment that encourages experimentation, rigorous evaluation, and consistent, iterative improvement. Convergence research and collaboration can help better integrate research into the

development process while leveraging technological development in, for example, learning analytics and natural language processing. This conference seeks to enable the creation of a Convergence Accelerator track that facilitates the convergence research and collaboration that is required to transform educational technology.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.