Research

Webliographer is a URL database. I started developing it in fall of 1996 in reaction to noticing that my personal web page was primarily a list of links and that maintaining it in HTML was cumbersome and error-prone. Web browser bookmarks are convenient, but still difficult to search and typically sequestered on one computer. My original vision of Webliographer was as a Mini-Yahoo--a set of approved links organized by topic.

As someone who always hated school (well, at least until I started working on a Ph.D.) I have been interested in finding ways to make classroom instruction more engaging. Thinking that hobbyists are the perfect example of life-long learners, I did some surveys to see if there are particular things that make all hobbies enjoyable. These surveys, of adult hobbyists and high school students, suggest that people like to create things that they can use to express themselves and be able to share with others. Since these features are part of Problem-based learning and cooperative learning (among others), this seemed like a viable way to improve instruction. My dissertation study tested three classroom activities with varying opportunities to create, customize, and share.