NMC Perspectives: Ideas that Matter

Malcolm Brown
Director
EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative
 

Malcolm Brown has been Director of the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative since 2009 and has initiated major ELI undertakings such as its Seeking Evidence of Impact program. Prior to assuming the ELI directorship, he was the Director of Academic Computing at Dartmouth College, overseeing a team active in instructional technology, research computing, classroom technology, and pedagogical innovation. During his tenure at Dartmouth, he worked actively with the ELI, contributing chapters to the EDUCAUSE eBooks, helping to plan focus sessions, and serving on the ELI Advisory Board. He has been a member of the EDUCAUSE Evolving Technologies committee and is currently on the faculty of the EDUCAUSE Learning Technology Leadership program. He has been on the board for the Horizon Report since its inception in 2004 and served as Chair of Board of the New Media Consortium. He served as the editor of the New Horizons column for the EDUCAUSE Review.
 

Lev Gonick
Vice President for Information Technology Services and Chief Information Office
Case Western Reserve University
 

Lev Gonick is Vice President for Information Technology Services and Chief Information Officer at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Lev is co-chair of the CIO Executive Council's higher education committee and co-chair of Cisco's Higher Education Executive Exchange. He was the Advisory Board Chair of the 2008 New Media Consortium's Horizon Project and former Board Chair of the NMC. In 2004 Lev and Case Western Reserve University founded what is today known as OneCommunity, the award-winning regional community network now reaching 22 counties in Northeast Ohio. He received the 2010 National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisory (NATOA) annual award for Community Visionary of the Year. In 2009 Case Western Reserve University began extending gigabit fiber to the home in Cleveland's inner city. Lev currently serves on numerous community Boards including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland and the Bellefaire JCB for Children. He is a regular blogger and tweets under the handle lgonick.

Helen Keegan
Senior Lecturer in Interactive Media
University of Salford MediaCity UK
 

Helen Keegan (@heloukee) is Senior Lecturer in Interactive Media and Social Technologies at the University of Salford, MediaCity UK. Her expertise lies in curriculum innovation and the development of new pedagogies, focusing on creativity and interdisciplinarity. A recognized international speaker, her research focuses on digital culture, digital identity and literacy, and the interplay between formal and informal learning. As a multi-disciplinary practitioner, she works across media arts and the sciences, developing partnerships and creative approaches to learning and collaboration.

She has been recognized by JISC as one of 10 institutional innovators in UK Higher Education, by ALT-Epigeum for her effective use of video in education, and in July 2011 she was awarded the Vice Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award in recognition of distinguished achievement in teaching and support of student learning at the University of Salford. Helen is an executive board member of the Digital Cluster – a centre of excellence which combines and leads on high quality research, enterprise and teaching in the areas of informatics, digital media, and new and convergent technologies. You can find out more about her work on her blog, Heloukee: EdTech and Digital Culture.

Keith Krueger
Chief Executive Officer
Consortium of School Networking
 

Keith R. Krueger is CEO of the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), a nonprofit organization that serves as the voice of K-12 school system technology leaders in North America.  CoSN’s mission is empowering educational leaders to leverage technology to realize engaging learning environments. In 2008 he was selected by eSchool News as one of ten people who have had a profound impact on educational technology over the last decade. He serves on many Advisory Boards including eSchool News, the Education Committee of the National Park System, the American Productivity Quality Council, the Virtual High School Global Consortium, the Friday Institute at NC State University and the Wireless Reach Advisory Board. He is a past Board Member/Treasurer of the National Coalition on Technology in Education & Training (NCTET). Keith has a global reputation as a key thought leader and has organized senior level U.S. delegations to visit Australia, Asia, Europe and South America to examine best practice in ICT in education. As a Certified Association Executive, he has extensive background in nonprofit management and has a Masters from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.

Vijay Kumar
Senior Associate Dean and Director, Office of Educational Innovation and Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
 

Dr.Vijay Kumar, provides leadership for planning and implementing technology-enabled educational innovations at MIT. In his prior roles at MIT as Assistant Provost and Director of Academic Computing, as well at other institutions, Kumar’s work focused on the effective integration of information technology in education. Kumar was the Principal Investigator of the  Open Knowledge Initiative, the MIT-led collaborative project supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to develop an open architecture for enterprise educational applications. He is a member of the Faculty Advisory Committee of MIT OpenCourseWare, is the Executive Officer of MIT’s Council on Educational Technology, and serves on the Operations Board of Massachusetts STEM Advisory Council. Vijay's research and his extensive engagement as advisor and consultant to academic and professional institutions are directed toward strategy, planning and implementing innovations for education. Vijay has been actively involved in efforts, such as those supported by the Hewlett Foundation and Curriki to advance the use of Open Educational Resources for improving educational access and quality. He is a co-editor of a Carnegie Foundation book "Opening Up Education" (MIT Press, August 2008). Vijay has served as advisor to India's National Knowledge Commission, and to UNESCO on their strategy for open educational resources. He is an advisor to the Open University of Catalonia, the Singapore University of Technology and Design, and to the Qatar Foundation International on educational technology and innovation. His experience includes programs for teacher education and planning for technology integration in K-12 education.
 

Ruben Puentedura
Founder and President
Hippasus
 

Dr. Ruben R. Puentedura is the Founder and President of Hippasus, an educational consulting firm focusing on transformative applications of information technologies to education. The basis for Hippasus is to be found in Dr. Puentedura's eighteen years of work in educational research and reform. While a teaching fellow at Harvard University, he codeveloped new courses in the introductory sciences, aimed at increasing the breadth and depth of science understanding for majors and non-majors alike. This work resulted in a Phi Beta Kappa teaching award, as well as his being named a Harvard Technology Fellow. Over the next twelve years, as a faculty member at Bennington College, and as the Director of the College's New Media Center, Dr. Puentedura designed and implemented new models for teaching that made exemplary use of new media and networking technologies. Finally, as an active participant in the Vermont Common Core Initiative educational reform process, Dr. Puentedura has worked to bring to K-12 education the research that has informed the rest of his work.

Scott Sayre
Founder and Principal
Sandbox Studios
 
Scott Sayre is a founder and principal at Sandbox Studios, a Minneapolis-based group that works with museums to plan, create, manage and assess education programs and technology projects. He has a doctorate in Education and has over twenty-five years of experience working with emerging education and information technologies. Scott currently teaches at Johns Hopkins University and is the Chair of the New Media Consortium’s board of directors. He previously held the positions of Director of Media and Technology at The Minneapolis Institute of Arts and Media Applications Researcher at the University of Minnesota's Telecommunications Development Center.

Sherry Lassiter
Program Manager
Center for Bits and Atoms, MIT

Sherry Lassiter is a former science documentary television producer, writer, director who decided she wanted to become a part of the story, rather than just telling other people’s stories. To that end, she changed careers (after 18 years in the TV biz), coming to MIT and working at the Media Lab with Prof. Gershenfeld. She was fortunate to see the personal fabrication movement in its nascent form, and watched it evolve over the years. Though hired as a manager, she followed personal fabrication from the Media Lab into the Fab Labs, finding that there was a secret tinkerer hidden in her psyche. Since that time, she has become a passionate fab labber, believing in the idea and the zeitgeist. She spends a good part of her time now fabricating, spreading the fab gospel, and running the Fab Foundation and international fab lab network.