The Learning Technologies Group (LTG) is a research group within the University of Illinois at Chicago's Electronic Visualization Laboratory that focuses on the design of technologies to support K-12 classroom learning. Formed in the late 1990s, LTG has worked with teachers and students in classroom ranging from grades 1-12, in both urban and suburban settings.

LTG focuses predominately on non-desktop technologies designed to support collaborative learning in groups and whole class organizations. Our goal is to help students develop "communities of practice" (Lave) surrounding the investigation of scientific phenomena.

Our early work focused on the use of visualization technologies to create simulated environments where children could observe phenomena, collect data, and conduct "natural experiments." These environments, Virtual Ambients, included large configurable fields full of flora, portions of the Martian surface, an ocean region containing both shallow (coral reef) and deep trench areas, and a simulation of the dance that American honeybees use to communicate the location of food sources to their hivemates. Using these environments, small groups of students investigated a wide range of problems, including population distributions, population growth, sensitivity, and gesture interpretation.

Beginning in 2002, we started experimenting with designs that placed less emphasis on extensive visualization, and more emphasis on activities that could engage entire classrooms at the same time. Some of these designs (e.g., Who's Who) employed wireless technologies to involve whole classes in synchronous problem-solving. More recently, we have begun to shape a new framework, Embedded Phenomena, that employs classroom-based distributed heterogeneous affordances to support inquiry of simulated scientific phenomena.