UC Links is a network of educational programs that connect community and university partners to provide computer-based and other learning activities for school children. Working in small groups, older and younger children learn together through informal activities exploring a variety of educational software, Internet-based resources, and other educational materials. University students enrolled in UC Links undergraduate coursework take part in community-based after-school or in-school programs and help guide the children through a variety of learning activities designed to promote literacy, math, science, and computer skills, as well as collaborative behavior. Drawing on the knowledge of parents and teachers in the local community, each site in the UC Links network is adapted to serve the special concerns, interests and needs of local children and their families. The community's role in the collaboration is to define themes and activities appropriate for their children. The university's role is sustained through undergraduate coursework that connects faculty and students' community service activities with undergraduate education.
Beginning in 1986 and continuing to the present time, a major tool LCHC has used for engaging in UCLinks activities has been a specially designed system of activities referred to as "The Fifth Dimension" which has been implemented in many locales by LCHC staff and associated researchers in other universities. Most implementations have involved after-school programs located in Boys and Girls Clubs, YM & YWCAs, recreation centers, and public schools across the United States, Mexico, Spain, Australia, Finland, and Russia. This work includes preschool through middle school participants.
See a video made about this program in its earlier years.
Fifth Dimension programs are designed around a set of common, yet locally adaptable, principles derived from cultural-historical activity theory. For example, Fifth Dimension sites provide school aged children with the opportunity to explore a variety of computer games and other game-like educational activities. These activities are structured so that participants are induced to externalize, reflect upon and criticize information through a variety of media. These interactions are then intensively studied drawing upon varied sources of date from post-session field notes to real time video. These various lines of investigation lead us ineluctably into mixed methods research, constantly making methodology a focus of attention. (PI: Mike Cole)