News & Events

Recent Seminars

Heart - Mind - Voice - Technology:
Organic Meets Electronic in Music & Games
Kid Beyond, Digital Musician
March 31, 2008

Kid Beyond is a digital musician – singer, beatboxer, songwriter, producer – who creates electronic pop music live onstage, using an array of software and hardware to loop and sample his voice. In this lecture/performance, he shows how he creates his amazing sounds, and discusses the role technology plays in his creative and production process.  

Watch video clips from this special event, as Kid Beyond answers questions about:
How he works onstage (1:37)
The history of beatboxing (2:31)
His career and the technology he uses (7:22)
Working in video games: “Simlish” (3:38)
More on his career:  Will he become mainstream?? (2:59)
and performs:
Cathedrals (5:37)
Wandering Star (5:29)
(Hear the magical ring:  As Kid Beyond moves his hand, a wireless MIDI controller in the ring sends signals which modify the sound.)

Evaluation as a Career
Ilona Holland, Lecturer on Education
April 8, 2008

In this brown bag lunch seminar, TIE faculty member Ilona Holland described the  tasks that evaluators do, the skills they should have, and the wide variety of organizations for which evaluators work.  Watch a video of this seminar

Muppet Diplomacy:  Sesame Street Around the World
Gary Knell, President & CEO, Sesame Workshop
November 14, 2007
See the video or hear the audio of Gary Knell’s talk at the Askwith Forum, or read a description in the Harvard Gazette.

November 15, 2007
Two informal seminars exclusively for HGSE students:

Working in Media
Gary Knell talked with students about the skills, education, and aspirations that prepare individuals for careers in creative media organizations such as Sesame Workshop.

Working Internationally
While elaborating on the practical aspects of organizing and managing Sesame Workshop's projects in many countries on four continents, this discussion explored challenges and rewards in working internationally in many domains, not only media.

Reinventing the Role of Information and Communications Technologies in Education
Chris Dede, Timothy E. Wirth Professor in Learning Technologies
November 13, 2007

Considering Doctoral Study
Barry Fishman, Visiting Associate Professor of Education
October 22, 2007
A brown bag lunch seminar for masters’ students interested in applying to a Ph.D. program.

Some Seminar Highlights

Learning with Virtual Peers
Justine Cassell, Professor of Communications Studies, Northwestern, March 2006

From Research to the Classroom: A Publisher's Perspective
Margery Mayer, Executive Vice President, Scholastic Corporation; March 2006

Educational Entrepreneurship: Assessment, Technology, and Business
Larry Berger, CEO and Co-founder, Wireless Generations; April 2006

Previous TIE Open Seminars

The TIE Open Seminars bring prominent people from the world of educational technology to HGSE. Previous guests include MIT's Sherry Turkel; MaMa Media President Idit Harel; Milt Chen, Executive Director of the George Lucas Educational Foundation; NBC Interactive's Mindy Goodblatt; Annie Valva ('95), from Pearson Broadband; Christopher Sarson (creator of ZOOM and Masterpiece Theatre); and Marilyn Jager Adams, Julie Wood, and Patti Sullivan-Hall, from Soliloquy Learning.

• Researching the Impact of Online Professional Development, Barry Fishman, Associate Professor of Learning Technologies, University of Michigan; April 2007
• Meet the Creator of Dora the Explorer, Chris Gifford, Executive Producer, Dora the Explorer and, Go, Diego, Go! April 2007
• Networked Learning Extends HGSE’s Impact, Stone Wiske, Co-founder, WIDE World; Lecturer, HGSE; April 2007
• Hard Fun – Digital Games and Learning, Yasmin Kafai, November 2006
• Confessions of an Educational Designer, Tom Snyder; October 2006
• Bridging Educational Research and Practice: Can It Be Done?, Glenn Kleiman; October 2006
• Educational Entrepreneurship: Assessment, Technology, and Business, Larry Berger, CEO and Co-founder, Wireless Generations; April 2006
• Bugscope! An Educational Outreach Project for K-12, Umesh Thakkar, Research Scientist, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois; April 2006
• Learning with Virtual Peers, Justine Cassell, Professor of Communication Studies, Northwestern University; March 2006
• From Research to the Classroom: A Publisher's Perspective, Margery Mayer, Executive Vice President, Scholastic Corporation; March 2006
• Ubiquitous Handhelds: Sifting Knowledge Through Our Fingertips, Chris Dede, Wirth Professor in Learning Technologies; Ed Dieterle, GSE doctoral student; Respondent: Hal Kingsbury, Ed.M. candidate; May 2004
• Self-Determination through Technology: A Teacher Education Program for Australia's Indigenous Remote Communities, Max Lenoy, Ed.M. '95 GSE, Lecturer/ Director of RATEP (Remote Area Teacher Education Program), James Cook University, Queensland, Australia, co-sponsored by the International Education Policy Program; May 2004
• Playful Learning: LEGO as a Mediating Artifact, Cathy Helfoe Fett, GSE ’84, Senior Project Manager, LEGO Educational Division, Marketing, Research, & Development; April 2004
• Constructing Media: Students Making News, John Richards, Ph.D., President, Consulting Services for Education, LLCFounder, CNN Student Bureau; Respondent: Kate Bielaczyc, GSE faculty; March 2004
• Teaching for Understanding Online, David Eddy Spicer, WIDE Research Manager and HGSE doctoral student; Shannon Martin Croft, WIDE Community Manager & Instructor; Heidi Soule, TIE ‘04 and former WIDE local Facilitator, Namibia; Respondent: Bob Fogel, HGSE Dean for Administration; December 2003
• myStudentBody.com: Using the Internet to Reduce High Risk Drinking in College Students, Sarah Lord, Ph.D., Director of College Programs, Inflexxion, Inc; Respondent: Michael Nakkula, Kargman Assistant Professor in Human Development and Urban Education Advancement; Director, Risk and Prevention Program, HGSE; November 2003
• Walden Media Presents Media Literacy: From Theory to Movies, Jean Kwon, GSE ’00, Director of Educational Content, Walden Media; Randy Testa, GSE ’78 & ‘90, Vice President of Educational Outreach, Walden Media; Respondent: Chris Dede, Wirth Professor in Learning Technologies; October 2003
• The Thinking Behind the Computer Clubhouse: Learning Approach and New Directions, Natalie Rusk, GSE ’89, Clubhouse Founder & MIT Media Lab; Leo Burd, Director of Young Activists & MIT Media Lab; Rachel Garber, GSE ’96, Education Program Developer, Kennedy School of Government; Respondent: Milton Chen, HGSE Visiting Technology Fellow, & Executive Director, George Lucas Educational Foundation; October 2003
• A Discussion Tool to Foster Collaborative Learning, John Palfrey, Executive Director& Hal Roberts, H2O Project Leader, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard Law School; April 2003
• 21st Century Skills in K-12: Technology as a Goal or as an Enabler, Ken Kay President, Partnership for 21st Century Skills; March 2003
• Arts for Learning: Program Initiatives by Kentucky Educational Television, Ira Simmons, Coordinator of Program Development, KET; March 2003
• Keeping the Vision in Television, Christopher Sarson, Creator of Masterpiece Theatre, ZOOM, Live from the Met, Parenting Works! November 2002