Yong Zhao has directed many large innovate research and development projects and institutes, including:

Current Projects:

1. Education for Global Citizenship: An education approach aimed at preparing global leaders for the 21st Century through combining the best traditions of Eastern and Western education. It offers bi-lingual (Chinese and English), bi-cultural (Chinese and American), and dual-pedagogy (Chinese and American) immersive instruction to students starting from Kindergarten. The program has been implemented in schools in China and the U.S..

2. Confucius Institute: An institute dedicated to developing innovative approaches, products, and services for Chinese language and culture education.

3. Zon/New Chengo, the world’s first Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Game for learning Chinese language and culture. It provides an immersive environment for learning Chinese through interactions with both pre-programmed content and other players, including live tutors from China.

Past Projects:

1. Kids Learning in Computer Klubhouses (KLICK!). A 5 year project created school based computer clubhouses for middle school students in 20 schools in Michigan. KLICK! was aimed to develop digital competencies and cultivate digital citizens.

2. Tiger. One of the world’s first electronic manuscripts processing systems. Yong Zhao began the development in 1997 and subsequently ran the system for American Educational Research Association.