Research

Frank Moretti has 39 years of experience in school-based leadership and is recognized as one of America's leading theorists and practitioners in the use of digital technology in education. He was the Executive Director of the internationally known Dalton Technology Plan. He founded the software company Learn Technologies Interactive. He contributes extensively to national conferences and seminars on technology and education and is the author of many papers and articles on innovation in education, and the role of technology, specifically multimedia, in education.

Frank is the Executive Producer of scores of digital media projects at the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning, including:

VITAL - Video Interactions for Teaching and Learning: A Web-based application that uses digital video as a teaching tool, allowing students to view a digital video library and to construct multimedia essays incorporating references to texts and videos. VITAL also stores all student work, allowing for sharing and peer review.

Image Annotation Tool: A Web-based application designed for students and faculty to upload, organize, categorize, present and annotate digital images. Students also can annotate and organize images into meaningful categories to support their individual study of the course content. For faculty, the IAT enables the creation of slideshows and the ability to review student annotations on course images.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X: Presents Malcolm X's memoir with links to critical annotations that provide perspectives beyond the written word. This MSE provides four "lenses," or perspectives, that illuminate the political, cultural, global, and faith-based aspects of Malcolm X's life and legacy. In addition, the MSE features a rich multimedia archive of primary sources, including historical documents, images, and videos as well as original interviews with scholars and Malcolm X's contemporaries.

Social Justice Movements Wiki: A student-authored, collaborative Web site about key social justice movements in the United States that provides students the opportunity to create a Web site exploring the broader political visions of organizations representing labor, civil rights, black liberation, reparations, socialism/communism, feminism, welfare rights, youth/Hip Hop activism, education, peace, environmental justice, and anti-globalization and their impact on local communities.

Film Language Glossary: For students involved in the making and studying of motion pictures. Specifically, the focus is on defining film terms and film language which are representative of all the major categories of Film Studies: practical terminology, technical terminology, the language of business, historical terms as well as the language of criticism and theory. Each entry is enhanced by sample film clips, images, and animations.

Heart Simulator: Modeling the pressure-volume relationship, the Heart Simulator contains parameters that students manipulate to simulate conditions and pathologies useful for teaching and learning the function of the heart. It provides a continuous graphic output of the relationship between pressure and volume in the heart under varying conditions.

Brownfield Action: This simulation engages students in an environmental investigation of a suspected contaminated land site. An adaptation of a paper-based version of the study the professor had used for several years, the project is ideally suited for a digital environment in which students seamlessly gather, store and manipulate data.

February 3, 2009: Designing a Global Learning Organization; with a focus on human development, President’s Office, Georgetown University

November 14, 2008: Presenter, “Working with Distressed Communities: The Use of Media as a Tool for Pedagogical Enhancement,” The Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching and Service, Georgetown University

November 12-14, 2008: “VITAL: A Web-based Video Analysis System for Teaching University-level Courses in Early Childhood Mathematics Education,” DR-K12 PI Meeting: Transforming STEM Education Through Research: Making an Impact on Student and Teacher Learning, National Science Foundation, Washington, DC

July 14-25, 2008:University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, S.A. (Distinguished Visiting Professor) : Seminar on Instructional Technology

April 16, 2008: “Mobilizing Design Research to Extend the Global Power of Digital Media in Education: The MacArthur Commission’s Global Classroom Project on Sustainable Development and the Millennium Village Simulation,” J.R. Garfield, R. Kelsey & F.A. Moretti, 3rd International Conference on Interactive Mobile and Computer Aided Learning (IMCL) 2008 Conference, Amman, Jordan

June 6-8, 2007: “Teacher 2.0: Developing the 21st Century Workforce,” EduStat Summit 2007, Columbia University, New York

May 15, 2006: “Inventing the Future of University Learning and Teaching in a Networked World,” Seminar, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland

Select Projects - Executive Producer

Multimedia Study Environments:
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)
William Shakespeare’s, The Tragedie of King Lear
W.E.B. Du Bois, Souls of Black Folk
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
The Vimalakirti

Simulations :
Heart Simulator
Brownfield Action: An Environmental Simulation
Millennium Village Simulation

E-Seminars :
Poverty, Wealth and History in the East End of London: E-Seminar 2, Revolution and Reform
Digital Learning Communities: Promoting Democracy Through Education
Malcolm X: Life After Death
“Pops,” Out Here in the Cause of Happiness: The Louis Armstrong Story

Analytic and Communication Tools :
Video Interactions for Teaching and Learning (VITAL)
Image Annotation Tool (IAT)
Deconstructor: An Online Film Analysis Tool

Pedagogical Wikis :
Social Justice Movements
The Politics of Sustainable Development
Seminar in Applied Mathematics
Reading and Writing Women