I am a Professor Emeritus in Library & Information Science, Curriculum & Instruction, Bioengineering, the Center for Writing Studies, and the Center for East Asian & Pacific Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. During 2007-08, I held a Fulbright Distinguished Chair at the National College of Ireland in Dublin.
I received a BA in Biology from Rice University in 1968 and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin in 1971. I then taught Computer Science at Rutgers University for three years. After that, I was a Principal Scientist at Bolt Beranek and Newman in Cambridge, Massachusetts from 1976 to 1990. I then taught for ten years in Curriculum & Instruction, followed by ten years in Library & Information Science, both at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
My work has focused on inquiry-based learning, community inquiry, and the information and communication practices that help people in communities learn and work together.
Building on a background in computer science, I’ve had a continuing interest in the promise, as well as the perils, that information and communication technologies offer for understanding, representing, and transforming our lived experiences. Over time, that interest has led to explorations of a variety of questions regarding the nature of knowledge, democratic participation, community, technology, and literacy. I’ve drawn from John Dewey’s theory of inquiry and the broader pragmatist tradition, including the work of Jane Addams, William James, Ella Flagg Young, Charles Sanders Peirce, and others, and on studies situated in community action.
