Jonathan deHaan

Doctoral Fellow, Educational Communication and Technology

Jonathan deHaan is a second-year doctoral student and fellowship recipient in the Educational Communication and Technology program. He is a graduate of Dordt College in Iowa where he received a B.A. in English Literature and earned an M.A. in TESOL from Michigan State University.  His research interest focuses on the use of video games as a learning tool in acquiring a second or foreign language.

Jonathan is currently the coordinator for his department’s research group, CREATE (the Consortium for Research and Evaluation of Advanced Technologies in Education).  This group is interested in how to improve learning through online and other advanced technologies.  He is also involved with the design and implementation of a progressive knowledge management system for his program, and is managing his program’s video game lab, in which he and other doctoral students are exploring the potential for games for a variety of educational purposes.

Jonathan has had five years of experience teaching ESL (English as a Second Language) and EFL (English as a Foreign Language) in community organizations, conversation schools, and university language programs in Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Japan and New York City.  His publications include "Acquisition of Japanese as a Foreign Language Through a Baseball Video Game" in Foreign Language Annals, and “Learning Language Through Video Games: A Theoretical Framework, an Analysis of Game Genres, and Questions for Future Research” with Interdisciplinary Press.