About

Download my Bio as a PDF.

The Learning & Innovation Blog has grown out of my need to have a place to discuss things that are on my mind … this is part research, note taking, idea sharing, and fun. I’ve been doing the blog thing for about five years now and it has been a great experience. I do my best to stay close to what I do and know best — technology utilization that impacts teaching and learning. Every now and then I jump off topic and rant, but that is to be expected.

Wordle of Learning & Innovation

I am the Director of Education Technology Services for Penn State University. In this role, I have the opportunity to help direct and drive the direction of the University’s commitment to teaching and learning with technology. I am lucky enough to work with an amazing staff who are dedicated to transforming the use of technology in teaching and learning. We focus our energy on instructional design, educational technology, digital media, and faculty development. Currently at ETS, I am leading efforts to bring University wide podcasting and blogging services to faculty, staff, and students. I am also responsible for the Digital Commons initiative, the TLT Symposium, components of the Blended Learning Initiative, Adobe Connect Pro, iTunes U, the TLT Communities, the PSU Serious Gaming Initiative, and supporting the use of ANGEL for teaching and learning … there are a bunch of other little things that I deal with as well.

I focus all the time I can (when I am not being an administrator) thinking about how technology can be used to extend the reach of teaching and learning. I travel quite a bit — meeting with other Institutions, participating in the CIC Learning Technologies Committee, working with industry partners, giving talks, and exploring new opportunities. You can keep up with the work I do and the stuff I am thinking about by reading this blog, Learning & Innovation, and by keeping an eye on my Updates blog.

Before becoming the Director of ETS, I spent over six years as the Director of the IST Solutions Institute in the College of IST at Penn State University. In that role, it was my responsibility to set the strategic goals of the Institute and to direct a majority of the activities that go on there. I was given the opportunity to create an Institute from the ground up and I am very proud of the things we did and the people who did them.

While at IST, I taught IST 110 nearly every semester to our incoming freshman and loved every minute of it. In addition to the face to face teaching I designed (along members of my team at SI) and taught the first hybrid and online sections of 110. I was also the PI and chief administrator for the Pennsylvania Governor’s School for Information Technology. This program brought 75 of the Commonwealth’s best and brightest rising seniors to campus for a five week residency program. It was an amazing living laboratory where the innovation of the Institute could be put into practice. As a matter of fact, most of the stuff we will do this semester was originally tested in the PGSIT.

Prior to Penn State I was part of a small start-up in the greater Philadelphia region. It was with Cogence Media that I got my first taste of using technology to enhance learning. We focused energy on the creation of OSHA training courseware — first on CD-ROM and then via the web. While I was there I started our web presence and worked to create the first versions of our high and low bandwidth online courseware. We did some pretty amazing things back in the day working with good old fashioned HTML, home grown content management, and Macromedia’s Authorware. Cogence taught me a ton about what I do now and the people I worked with there showed me how you can be both committed to quality and innovation. There are days I miss the little shop in the woods where so much of what I do now was created.

I guess it warrants saying that the things I post here are my opinion and Penn State, the Institute, or the School of IST don’t share them. Ok, that’s out of the way … I also have a small consultancy that actually does a little work from time to time. I love the space that I work and really don’t know what I would do otherwise.

I am currently blogging in multiple locations … each slightly different, but with the same focus. This is where I do most of my work, but I also maintain blogs for my courses and at my personal Penn State webspace. All in all, I am well over my head with all this writing. Its still fun and I will keep doing until it isn’t.