Nichole Pinkard
Nichole Pinkard is an associate professor in the College of Computing and Digital Media at DePaul University in Chicago. She is the founder of Digital Youth Network. DYN, created in partnership with the Chicago Public Library, created the YOUmedia teen learning space. DYN also designed and implemented the first Chicago Summer of Learning, which has become the Chicago City of Learning. Dr. Pinkard is the recipient of a 2014 Northwestern Alumni Award, a 2010 Common Sense Media Award for Outstanding Commitment to Creativity and Youth, and the 2004 the Jan Hawkins Award for Early Career Contributions to Humanistic Research and Scholarship in Learning Technologies. She holds a BS in Computer Science from Stanford University, an MS in Computer Science and a PhD in Learning Sciences from Northwestern University. Her current scholarly interests include the design of equitable learning ecosystems, use of pedagogical-based social learning networks, digital badging, and computational-making learning environments for underrepresented groups.

Deb Roy
Deb Roy is director of the Social Machines group at the MIT Media Lab, where he leads the Laboratory for Social Machines (LSM). He is also an associate professor at MIT and chief media scientist of Twitter. Roy’s research at MIT focuses on machine learning, natural language processing, and network science with applications ranging from children’s learning to large-scale media analytics.

Host: J. Philipp Schmidt

In theory, technology holds the promise to increase the access to and quality of education. In practice, new tools and opportunities often seem to exacerbate existing opportunity divides. How can we design education systems and develop supporting technologies that create a more equitable learning ecosystem? In this talk, Nichole Pinkard and Deb Roy will present how they have been addressing this question across different contexts, ranging from inner-city Chicago, to rural areas, and developing countries.