Toward a Learning Technologies Knowledge Network

The National Science Foundation-funded Center for Innovative Learning Technologies (CILT) is designed to be a national resource for stimulating research and development of technology- enabled solutions to critical problems in K-14 science, math, engineering and technology learning. The Center, launched at the end $1997, is organized around four themes identg5ed as areas where research is likely to result in major gains in teaching and learning, and sponsors research across disciplines and institutions in its four theme areas. CILT brings together experts in the fields cognitive science, educational technologies, computer science, subject matter learning, and engineering. It engages business through an Industry Alliance Program and is also training postdoctoral students. CILT's founding organizations are SR1 International's Center for Technology in Learning, University of California at Berkeley (School Education and Department of Computer Science), Vanderbil t University's Learning Technology Center, and the Concord Consortium. Through its programs, CILT seeks to reach beyond these organizations to create a web of organizations, individuals, industries, schools,foundations, government agencies, and labs, that is devoted to the production, sharing and use $new knowledge about how learning technologies can dramatically improve the processes and outcomes of learning and teaching. This paper describes the rationale and operations of the Center, and first-year progress in d+ning a set of CILT partnership projects with many other institutions that came out $our national theme-team workshops