About CARTE

The mission of the Center for Advanced Research in Technology for Education (CARTE) is to develop new technologies for education and training, and evaluate their effectiveness. We seek to create learning experiences that are responsive to student needs, that are motivating and engaging, and that promote deep learning. CARTE is part of the Information Sciences Institute at the University of Southern California.

Our work spans a wide range of education and training contexts, including childhood education, college education, continuing and life-long learning, and training. We are concerned with science and engineering education, clinical education in medicine and dentistry, health communications, language learning, and military training. We also conduct research in cognitive and social modeling in support of these activities.

A major current thrust at CARTE is "socially aware learning environments," which emulate aspects of human social interaction in engaging with learners and which support social learning processes. We have a long-standing interest in pedagogical agents, which we continue to develop in this direction. We also engaged in developing "drama-based learning environments," environments that emploit dramatic structures and techniques in order to make learning experiences more understandable and engaging.

CARTE is a multidisciplinary center that includes artificial intelligence specialists, multimedia designers, cognitive psychologists, and educational researchers.