Assistant Dean for Educational Programs

Faculty of Computing and Information Science

Cornell University

wofford AT cs.cornell.edu

Areas of interest
Digital authorship, broadening participation in computing, print media in virtual environments, qualitative research of K-12 computer arts education, reading in the digital age.

Education

Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, Education (Reading/Writing/Literacy)

Dissertation: College Writing, Capitalism, and the Common Good: Adult Students Imagining Civil Capital

M.A., Washington University in St. Louis, English Literature

B.A., Union College, English

Current Projects

BPC-DP: Worlds for Information Technology and Science (WITS). NSF Award # 0624418. 01/01/2007-12/31/2010 WITS is broadening the participation of women and underrepresented minorities in computing through the use of virtual world outreach programming. The WITS project supports CYFair, a service-outreach program in which undergraduates serve as mentors to middle school students. CYFair builds on the success of Cornell University's SciFair outreach program, which uses the medium of online virtual worlds to engage middle school students in education. CYFair focuses on computing and information science and building foundation computing skills at the middle school level. To ensure scalability and adaptability of the program model, the approach is being tested at three geographically dispersed institutions: Pennsylvania State University, Virginia Commonwealth University, and the San Diego Supercomputing Center and UCSD.

New Media Consortium (NMC), Advisory Board member, K12 Horizon Project . The New Media Consortium (NMC) is an international 501(c)3 not-for-profit consortium of nearly 300 learning-focused organizations dedicated to the exploration and use of new media and new technologies. Each year, among other initiatives, the NMC publishes an annual Horizon Report. The Horizon Project is the centerpiece of NMC's Emerging Technologies Initiative, and the Horizon Report charts the landscape of emerging technologies for teaching, learning and creative expression. Horizon.K12 is a new project that applies the process developed for the New Media Consortium's Horizon Project with a focus on emerging technologies for elementary and secondary learning institutions.

Computational Education for Scientists Computing is anticipated to have an increasingly expansive impact on the sciences overall, becoming the third, crucial component of a “golden triangle” that includes mathematics and experimental and theoretical science. However, even more true with computing than with math and science, we are not preparing our students for this new reality. The number of students pursuing degrees in computer science leaves us without enough qualified candidates to fill all the open positions in computing. With certainty there are not enough students being prepared in computing to satisfy the needs of science as well. Sponsored and coordinated by Microsoft Research, Computational Education for Scientists (CEfS) is one response to this need: "The goal is to help the students to take advantage of the true power of computing and become more successful in their own fields. The essence in this picture is computational thinking. The question is how do we infuse computational thinking into science education?" CEfS funded "Computationally-rich science education: A ten-year review of the journal of science education and technology (1998-2008)."

Cornell CS Island in Second Life CS undergraduate students had the chance to script, build, and design in a new Second Life sim sponsored by the Cornell Computer Science Department. Inworld reporting monitored island development and student interactions. Island launched August, 2007.

Real Place, Virtual Space As a group of 9- and 10-year old students are introduced to the new computer lab in their apartment complex’s community room, we described our experiences learning about the Internet, blogs, and virtual world technologies. Real Place, Virtual Space was a blog posted through Expert Voices, a blog archive authored by researchers and teachers across the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) network.

Publications and Presentations

Wofford, J. (2009) Computationally-rich science education: A ten-year review of the journal of science education and technology (1998-2008). Journal of Science Education and Technology, 18 (1): 29-36

Mahar, J., Corbit, M. and Wofford, J. (2008). Virtual outreach through virtual worlds: A model for attracting and keeping women in computing. Paper presented at AACE E-Learn Conference, Las Vegas, NV, Nov 17-21.

Breck, E., Easley, D., Fan, K-Y D., Kleinberg, J., Lee, L., Wofford, J. and Zabih, R. (2008). "A new start: Innovative introductory {AI}-centered courses at Cornell." In Papers from the AAAI Spring Symposium on Using AI to Motivate Greater Participation in Computer Science (AAAI tech report SS-08-08).

Wofford, J. (July 2007). "Behind the chat: Evaluating learning in virtual worlds". Worlds for Information Science and Technology (WITS). Ithaca, NY.

"Are there boundaries in this virtual world?: Technology, Education, and Play". (February 2007). Presented at the 28th Annual Ethnography in Education Research Forum. Philadelphia, PA.

"Literacies in the Lifeworld: Adult Students Imagining Civil Capital." Presented at the 26th Annual Ethnography in Education Research Forum. February, 2005. Philadelphia, PA.

"Adult Students’ Response to a Poem about Race." Spencer Urban Education Research Forum. March, 2003. Philadelphia, PA.

Courses Taught

Introduction to Poetry; Contemporary Literature; Eighteenth Century British Literature; Creative Writing; Grant Writing; Women Writers; Latin American Literature in Translation; Learning Across the Disciplines; Writing for the Sciences; Composition 099; Composition 101; Composition 102; Twentieth Century Literature: Realism

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke

Barchester Towers - Anthony Trollope

White Teeth - Zadie Smith

On Beauty - Zadie Smith

The Pick Up - Nadine Gordimer

Convergence Culture - Henry Jenkins

Unlocking the Clubhouse - Margolis & Fisher

Tune In, Log On - Nancy Baym

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows- J.K. Rowling

Favorite Books from 2008

No Idle Hands: The Social History of Knitting- Anne Macdonald

A History of Hand Knitting - Richard Rutt

Favorite Books from 2009

Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Race, and Computing - Jane Margolis

The Life and Times of Chaucer - John Gardner

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