Sarita Yardi, Ph.D. Student
Georgia Institute of Technology
Three Expertise Keywords:
Network Analysis, Social Computing, Teen Culture
Why Digital Media and Learning?
it is pervasive in our lives. At home, work, school, and everywhere in between, we are building relationships and communicating in exciting ways. It’s a fascinating and open-ended field to be a researcher in right now.
Recent Posts:
Description of Current Work:
My research explores viral learning in large-scale socially networked websites, which I define as the set of systemic, social influences that motivate the desire to learn something new. What factors motivate people to become content creators and to learn new skills through participation in social networks? Socially networked environments that are characterized by structured peer-to-peer connectivity, transparency of activity, creative expression, and a permeable barrier to entry can be especially rich breeding grounds for viral learning. My current project is a Facebook application that consists of a series of contests in which youth are challenged to create media-based projects using animations, videos, images, and narrative stories. They can link projects from external programmable media application, such as Flash and Scratch, and networked media repositories, such as Flickr and DeviantArt. Youth participate by uploading their projects, describing how they made it, and sharing their projects with other users, who can then rate the project and pass it on. My research draws from computer science, learning theory, data mining, and social network analysis to understand the process through which people--youth, in particular--learn new skills through their participation in online socially networked sites.
Selected Publications/Projects/Articles/Press:
Yardi, S. Whispering, Chatting, and Learning in a Classroom Backchannel. Selected for the Innovative Uses and Unexpected Outcomes Volume in the MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning. (forthcoming Spring 2008). Available online: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/dmal.9780262633598.143?prevSearch=allfield:(yardi)
Yardi, S. Cheating, Collaboration, and Classroom Learning. Published by the Danish Research Centre on Education and Advanced Media Materials. Cambridge University Press. (forthcoming).
Co-Moderators: Amy Bruckman, Sarita Yardi. Panelists: Allison Druin, Robin Jeffries, Yasmin Kafai. 2007. “Broadening the Field of Computing Through a Design-Based HCI Curriculum.” In Proceedings of the 2007 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. Orlando, FL. Oct. 17-20, 2007.
Chair: danah boyd, Panelists: Lisa Tripp, Rebecca Herr Stephenson, Sarita Yardi, Patricia G. Lange, Sonja Baumer, Christo Sims, Heather A. Horst. “Growing Up Connected: Ways of Knowing through Participatory Culture.” Society for Social Studies of Science Annual Meeting, Montreal, Canada, Oct. 11-13, 2007.
Yardi, S. & Bruckman, A. (2007). “What Is Computing? Bridging the Gap Between Teenagers’ Perceptions and Graduate Students’ Experiences.” In ICER’07: Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Computing Education Research. Atlanta, GA. Sep 13-15, 2007.
Yardi, Sarita. (2007). “From Functional to Fun: End User Development for Teenagers.” Proceedings of IEEE Symposia on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing. Coeur d’Alène, Idaho.
Yardi, S & Perkel, D. Understanding Classroom Culture Through a Theory of Dialogism: What Happens When Cheating and Collaboration Collide? Paper accepted to the Computer Supported Collaborative Learning Conference. Rutgers University, Camden, NJ, USA, July 16-July 21, 2007.
Yardi, S & Perkel, D. “Digital Kids Describe Digital Lives.” Chairs: Cynthia Carter Ching & Yasmin B. Kafai Other Panelists: Brigid Barron, Kevin M. Leander, X., Kylie Peppler, Christopher M Hoadley, Christine Wang. Discussant: Marina Bers. “Technobiographies: Researching Life Stories with Technology.” Interactive Symposium, 2007 American Educational Research Association (AERA). Chicago, IL, April 9-13, 2007.
Yardi, S. An Exploration of the Backchannel in Collaborative Learning Environments. Paper accepted to the 7th International Conference of the Learning Sciences. Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA, June 27-July 1, 2006.
Yardi, S. ClassChat: A Tool for Visualizing Backchannel Discussions. In Thinking Through New Media 2006 Conference. Duke University, Durham, NC, June 6-8, 2006.
Chan, S., Hill, B. and Yardi, S. 2005. Instant Messaging: Accountability and Peripheral Participation In Textual User Interfaces. In Proceedings of the 2005 international ACM SIGGROUP Conference on Supporting Group Work. Sanibel Island, FL, USA, November 6-9, 2005. GROUP ‘05.
