Before I went to college---

• Born to be the first child (which usually is considered clever and responsible :)) ) in my family and became the subject for my father to experiment on with his own educational ideas...
• Though regarded as gifted in fine arts, I decided not to go to special fine arts school when I was 15, because I was sure that I still have great potential in other interesting fields.
• Stumbled through the traditional Chinese education system and survived among the top 3% students in all my elementary and high school classes and got admitted to Beijing Normal University. I was lucky comparing with those who failed the exam. College Entrance Examination is a decade-long battle for every young child in China. For decades, it has produced more losers than winners. Is this the goal of education itself? How can we provide a better educational environment for our young children to develop their own great potentials? These questions has brought me to my 7 yr. study in the field of education in BNU....

My 7 years at Beijing Normal University---

• I Majored in Early Childhood Development and Education. The courses I took were mostly focused on child psychology and child development theories. Without these training, I wouldn't have enough confidence for the one-month teaching practices at a kindergarten and a middle school....
• Research---I began to participate in research work in the Dept. of Education and the Institute of Developmental
  Psychology since my second year in university, and
  • It mainly focused on children's social development with a special concern of the phenomenon of a new generation of only child in China. Topics covered are children's development in self-regulation, sympathy, responsibility, and parents educational beliefs and behaviors etc...
  • Through these research projects, I began to play with computers and statistics software like SPSS, etc.
    At that time, never dreamed that computer could be a children's machine at all....
  • Finished my master thesis on Development of Self-regulation Of 4-5-year-old And Its Relation to Personality Development, in 1998 and got my M.A.degree.
• Awards: ---
  • Outstanding Graduate Student Award, 1996-1998
  • First One of the BNU Graduate Student English Ability Competition,1997
  • Undergraduate Student Academic Scholarship, 1991-1995
• Spare time activities:
  • Fine arts training
  • Piano lesson.
  • English language tutor for high school students

At Clever Software---

It was at Clever Software that I began to know the power of Children's Machine( Dr. Seymour Papert's word for computer). Then I became really addicted to the research on any new possibility that computer could bring to a child's life, including learning, social interaction, etc. I was deeply involved in the following projects at that time--

• The Learning Revolution---A project aims at promoting people's understanding of the new learning in the information age.
• CleverStar---A series of educational software for children aging from 3 to 12, I was the chief editor of structure and content.
• Interpreter for visiting foreign enterprises.

Through my work in children's software, I began to know many current research in this field, including Dr. Daniel Shade's research on Children's Software Evaluation. I found out that if I want to output successful products for our kids, I need to input more, so I come to the U. of Delaware for a academic refill ...

At the University of Delaware---

• Research assistant, Coordinator, Lab School technology laboratory, & instructor for sepcial problem students in computer in early childhood, Fall, 2000---

Hey! Why not ome by and visit my littlevirtual office :-))

• Research assistant, Children's software evaluation. Dept. of Individual and Family Studies,
  Fall, 1999---Spring, 2000
• Courses

  Fall 1999	Spring 2000	Fall 2000
  IFST650 Computers in Early Childhood	FST601 Development Through Life Span	EDUC632 Internet Curriculum Application
  EDUC885 Advanced Multimedia Design and Development	EDUC665 Elementary Statistics	IFST815 Research Issues And Design
  IFST615 Research Methods	CISC181 Intro to Computer Science, C++I	EDUC856 Intro to Statistical Inference
  IFST865 Advanced Seminar in Family Studies		CISC220 Data Structures

Research Interests

• Young children's social interaction in learning with new technology

• Online learning and social interaction, project-based learning
• Children's software evaluation and toy development
• New learning theories and school education system reform in information age