
News Highlights
Dr. Sarah Barksdale successfully defended her dissertation titled, “'It’s Hard Work’ — K-12 Teachers’ Enacted Curriculum of Computational Thinking and Computer Science Integration." Dr. Barksdale has been a valued member of the LT community since beginning her doctoral studies, and she presented her dissertation research to a large crowd of virtual attendees via Zoom on May 4, 2023.
Chase Fingerson, a senior enrolled in LT’s undergraduate course CI4311W Technology and Ethics in Society with Dr. Jolie Kennedy, recently had an opinion piece published in The Minnesota Daily, the University of Minnesota’s campus newspaper.
On March 23rd, LT PhD students John Bartucz and Tina Jeon participated in CEHD’s Research and Innovation Day. They showcased DataX, a K-12 justice-oriented data science education project sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
LT alumni Dr. Angel Pazurek and Dr. Suzan Koseoglu have co-authored a new publication in EdTechnica: The Open Encyclopedia of Educational Technology. Angel and Suzan began collaborating on numerous projects during their time together as Ph.D. students in the LT program and have continued to do so. Angel is now a faculty member in LT, and Suzan is a faculty member in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education at the University of Greenwich in the U.K.
Dr. Patrick O'Leary recently successfully defended his dissertation in LT! The title of Pat's dissertation was, "Integrating Mixed Reality Technologies into an Environmental Learning Field Experience: A Case Study." He was co-advised by Bhaskar Upadhyay and Angel Pazurek. As a blanket of December snow fell on the Twin Cities that day, friends, family, colleagues, and both current and former classmates joined together to support Pat virtually on Zoom as he presented his case study research on the integration of mixed reality technologies in an environmental science course.

Minnesota was one of the first states to have fully web-based online schools and as a result has a robust history of policies, professional learning co