Since I have finished my master at Harvard that I am looking into Learning, Theater and Technology. I had worked with Director 8 from Macromedia to create a tool called Virtual Forum Theater. Director is not enough to accomplish the goals of my project, so I moved on to Java.

I just finished an interdisciplinary PhD at Tufts under the School of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering - Graduate and Professional Studies. My advisors were Alva Couch - Computer Science, Downing Cless - Theater and Marina Bers - Child Development. I designed, developed and researched Virtual Forum Theater (VFT). Below you find documents that I have written about this research:

PhD Dissertation (Feb, 2008). Virtual Forum Theater: Creating and sharing drama to resolve conflicts.

Developing a collaborative Theater and Technology Project

TUFTS Assignments - Tech Tools for Learning

VFT&Boal-Brecht presented at the Pedagogy of the Oppressed Conference - Omaha - April 2004

VFT Poster presented at Tufts University Center for Children (TUCC) - May 2004

Chaired "Panel Digital Media Production and Social Change" and presented "Virtual Forum Theater: Creating and Sharing Drama to Resolve Conflicts" at Digital Media and Learning Conference, San Diego, February 2010. Click here to check the slidecast of the presentation

Publications:

Cavallo, A & Ayers, C.M. (1984). “Informatizacao e Pesquisa Tecnico-Cientifica – Uma  Aplicacao em Projetos de Pesquisa Mineral”. VII Congresso Nacional de Informatica, SUCESU, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, November, 1984.

Cavallo, A. (2003). An investigation into ways that cultural gender roles interfere with the learning of science and engineering”. EuroLogo 2003 (http://www.eurologo.org/) Porto – Portugal.

Cavallo, A. & Couch, A. (2003).  Researching and designing learning environments with internet technology” International Conference on Multimedia and ICTs in Education Badajoz-Spain, 2003 (http://www.formatex.org/micte2003/acceptedabstracts.htm).

Cavallo, A. & Couch, A. (2004). Virtual Forum Theater: a CSCL for underprivileged children. XXXI SEMISH - Integrated Seminar of Software and Hardware. Salvador, Brazil. August 2004.

Cavallo, A. (2003).  Researching and designing learning environments with internet technology”, Poster at XIV SBIE-Brazilian Conference of Informatics in Education RJ-Brazil, 2003.

Cavallo, D., Blikstein, P., Sipitakiat, A., Cavallo, A. et. al. (2004).The City that We Want: Generative Themes, Constructionist Technologies and School/Social Change.” Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, ICALT’04.

Cavallo, A. (2004). Applying Brecht’s and Boal’s Theories to Virtual Forum Theater. Presented at the 10th Annual Pedagogy & Theater of the Oppressed International Conference. Omaha, USA. April, 2004

Cavallo,A., Couch, A., Chow, M., Horn, M. (2005). “Virtual Forum Theatre – A CSCL Environment for Scenario Generation and Rehearsal for Change.” Presented at Computer Assisted Learning – CAL’05 Virtual Learning? University of Bristol, UK, 2005.

Cavallo,A., Couch,A. (2007)Design-based research on virtual forum theatre.” Presented at Computer Assisted Learning – CAL’07 Development, Disruption & Debate Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, 2007.

Cavallo, A. (2007). “Virtual Forum Theater: Sharing thoughts and experience online to solve conflicts.” Presented in the symposium Developmental Technologies: Positive uses of technology for youth learning and development at the 2007 Society of Research in Child Development Conference, Boston, MA.

Cavallo,A., Couch,A. (2008). Virtual Forum Theater: collaborative playmaking to explore unjust situations In: 15th International Conference of the Association for Learning Technology - ALT-C 2008: Rethinking the Digital Divide, 2008, Leeds.

Awards:

Research Grant from Tufts University Center for Children. http://www.tucc.tufts.edu/funded_projects_04.htm, 2003-2004

Unpublished Paper:

Cavallo,A., Couch, A., Chow, M., Horn, M. (2005). “Social factors affecting the design of CSCL environments: preliminary observations”.

Cavallo, A (2005). "Educational and Psychological Research Methods".

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