Home ari Publications pdf, bib, rss Software app, dmg, src Dissertation phd Ari Bader-Natal ari @ cs.brandeis.edu DEMO Lab, Computer Science Department Brandeis University, Waltham, MA 02454 Recent updates Ph.D. Dissertation now online (05.06), Article included in new O'Reilly book (04.17), New CS Tech Report posted (04.16), more... Dissertation Abstract 11 April 2008 For the past several years, I have been a graduate student in Computer Science at Brandeis University. After having successfully defended my doctoral dissertation in April, I received my Ph.D. in May. Boston Globe article 5 August 2004 SpellBEE intro AIED-2005 BEEweb intro ITS-2006 Assessing learning AIED-2007 Evaluating Difficulty EDM@AIED-2007 Using Expectations TechReport-2008 A bit about my research: In classroom-based studies, peer tutoring has proved to be an effective learning strategy, both for the tutees and for their peer tutors. In seeking to translate the successes of peer-assisted learning from the classroom to the Internet, one major hurdle to overcome is that of motivation. In my dissertation work, I examined the possibilities of motivating learning among peers by incorporating these interactions into a game. Games offer a valuable set of tools and techniques for affecting student participation, engagement, goals, and strategies. In order to experiment with the real-world effects of game-based peer learning activities, I built SpellBEE. SpellBEE is a web-based game in which pairs of players engage in a two-person English language spelling activity. Since it was first released four years ago, thousands of students have actively participated. The SpellBEE activity later inspired and informed the development of the BEEweb, a larger suite of synchronous, collaborative learning activities based on the same motivational structure as SpellBEE. Today, the BEEweb platform currently hosts PatternBEE, MoneyBEE, and GeograBEE, and more activities are currently in development. Visualization paper AAAI Symposium-2005 Coevisualizer Visualization app Earlier in graduate school, I examined methods for monitoring success and failure in coevolutionary algorithms. I developed the Coevisualizer (in Java) for experimenting with coevolutionary algorithms. I've since released this software, and plan to soon make the source code available, also. BEEweb Status presence monitoring Page Axe webapp privacy I've released an assortment of applications, scripts, and code, primarily for Mac OS X. Among these, Page Axe enables true data privacy in the context of personal web-based applications, Berry (never released) lets me access functionality on my Mac using my very low-tech cell phone, and BEEweb Status Menu monitors the presence of players in BEEweb games. 2004 hike summer solo I have a few albums online with pictures from travels and hiking trips over the past few years.