Stéphane Lévesque

Stéphane Lévesque is Associate professor of history education and Director of the Virtual History Lab (VH Lab) at the Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa. In the Fall of 2011, he was visiting professor of digital history at Umea University in Sweden. His research focuses on students' historical thinking and consciousness, Canadian history, citizenship education, and new media and technology in education. In the early spring of 2011, professor Lévesque opened the Virtual Historian Laboratory (VH Lab). Funded by CFI, this is the first research centre in Canada to study the on-line learning of history. Innovative approaches, such as eye-tracking analysis, are used to study the methods and quality of virtual learning, to clarify the needs of on-line learners, and to develop the models and contexts that lead to improving the design, presentation and evaluation of web sites, simulations and learning materials in history classrooms. Through ongoing research and the development of partnerships with the Research Unit "Faire l'histoire: Making History: Narratives and Collective Memory in Education", the Centre de recherche en civilisation canadienne-française and Canadian museums, the VH lab uses cutting-edge technology to study user behaviour, to improve learning and evaluation and ultimately to enhance the teaching of history through information and communication technologies in education. Recent research projects include "The Virtual Historian: Digital History in the Canadian Classroom" (www.virtualhistorian.ca) funded by the Western Innovation Fund and the Faculty of Education Media and Information Services at the University of Western Ontario – Phase II (VH 2.0 version) is now available development with funding from CFI and support from the University of Ottawa; "Historical Literacy and Digital Technology" funded by the Canadian Council on Learning; and "Canadian and US Students' Historical Learning with Technology," a SSHRC funded comparative study. He is very active in the national history community. He is a Board member of the Virtual Museum of Canada, the Canada's History Society, and The History Education Research Network/Histoire et éducation en réseau (THEN/HiER), past advisory board member of the Historica Foundation, past president of the Citizenship Education Research Network and co-chair of the Teaching History interest group of the American Educational Research Association. Stéphane Lévesque served as educational expert for the Advisory committee on the establishment of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights as well as curriculum expert for the Ontario Ministry of Education on the revision of the Canadian and World Studies curriculum. In 2006, he was nominated by the Council of Ontario Universities for the Award for Excellence in Teaching with technology.

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