Ricki Goldman-Segall

Director, MERLin & Associate Professor Curriculum Studies Faculty of Education University of British Columbia Publications

Background

I study children's ways of thinking through various multimedia lenses and methodological frameworks within the field of education. Since 1986 I have been designing digital video ethnographic tools for making sense of video data.

My interdisciplinary doctoral work in Arts and Media Technology was completed at the MIT Media Lab under the supervision of Seymour Papert, creator of the computer language for children called LOGO. It was with Seymour and interactive filmmaker, Glorianna Davenport, that I learned how to build what Clifford Geertz calls thick descriptions of children's thinking, using the multimedia tool Constellations.

Since coming to the University of British Columbia (UBC), I have conducted a longitudinal multimedia ethnographic study on the topic of gender, science education at the Bayside Middle School, a school on Vancouver Island.

Research interests

Epistemological Pluralism

This approach is based on a re-appraisal of Piagetian/Papertian theories of learning as stages (Piaget) and styles (Papert). I propose that learning is akin to layering knowledge structures through deepening one's experience with a subject in both "real" and "virtual" ways. Learning is a flexible gendered experience that encourages a wide range of epistemological "attitudes."

Methodological Pluralism

As diverse users annotate selected observations using video tools, layers of interpretations are built in the database. Constellationsl, which facilitates sorting, sifting, and comparing interpretations, enables teams of researchers to build collective theories about the data.

Advanced Cognitive Technologies

Over the last decade I have been conducting a study with the learners. We have been using video and computer technologies to explore how New Media technologies provide platforms for understanding learning and teaching in situated contexts.