Instructional Architect
OUR PEOPLE
Mimi Recker
Mimi Recker is a Professor in the Department of Instructional Technology at Utah State University, in the beautiful mountains of Northern Utah. In two current NSDL grants, her research group is developing software tools, professional development programs, and sustainable dissemination strategies so that teachers and learners can make better use of online learning resources to help improve learning.
She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and held academic positions at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
Jim Dorward
Jim is a Professor in the Department of Elementary Education at Utah State University. He specializes in Program Evaluation, Research Methods, Mathematics Education, and attending meetings. Dr. Dorward has published occasionally in mathematics education and evaluation journals and been principal investigator and project evaluator on several large-scale national projects.
Jim enjoys all outdoor pursuits and spent 15 seasons a climbing ranger in Grand Teton National Park. He is also a private pilot with a host of excuses for flying in the mountains and deserts of the West.
Andy Walker
Andy Walker is an assistant professor in the department of Instructional Technology at Utah State University. Like all assistant professors he's mildly neurotic about tenure--but enjoys his job immensely. His research interests are in problem-based learning and in collaborative filtering (recommender systems) for educational purposes. Also like all assistant professors he loves to hear himself talk (you can "listen in" at his blog).
Andy is a recovering geek, having worked on the project as a doctoral student back in the day he took a faculty position at Lehigh University for three years before coming back to USU. For the past couple of years he's been working on a meta-analysis of problem-based learning most recently with his fabulous RA Heather. When finished he plans on yelling "We're going to Disneyland!" (they'll be presenting at AECT in Anaheim Fall 07).
Brooke Robertshaw
Brooke Robertshaw is a second year PhD student in Instructional Technology here at Utah State University. Her interests include reuse of digital resources, the interplay of culture and reuse of open educational resources, and how these resources can be used to help empower those most disempowered here in the United States. She works with the IA team as a research assistant.
Brooke came to Utah State from Eugene, Oregon where she was a community organizer in the peace and human justice communities. Among the variety of different causes she worked with her most proud accomplishments include being a founding board member of the Justice Not War Coalition and being the Assistant Manager of the Andrea Ortiz for City Council campaign, which lead to the successful election of the first Latina to the Eugene City Council. During her last year in Eugene she was the technical coordinator for LEAD (Leadership, Education, Adventure and Direction), a program that gives at-risk teens the skills to change the world. She got her Master's degree in Instructional Technology from the University of Georgia (1998) and her B.A. in Elementary Education (1995) from Oglethorpe University.
When not working Brooke enjoys biking, cooking, personal growth work, and knitting the occasional hat.
Heather Leary
Heather Leary is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Instructional Technology at Utah State University (USU). Her research interests include problem-based learning, digital libraries, and open education. She is involved in Instructional Architect (IA) as a research assistant.
Heather received a Master of Education (2005) and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (2000) from Utah State University. During that time she worked for the University with faculty, staff, and students in various capacities as a Projectionist, Photographer, Graphic Designer, Cataloging Assistant, and Digital Library Assistant.
Heather enjoys spending her free time with her husband and two daughters camping, hiking, cooking, reading, snow skiing, and watching movies.
Yan Ma
Yan Ma is a first-year PhD student in the Department of Instructional Technology at Utah State University. Her current research interests include Digital Libraries, Problem-based Learning and Cross-cultural Education. She is involved with the Instructional Architect (IA) as a graduate research assistant.
Yan Ma received her B.A. in English Education in 1998 at Hubei University of Education (China) and her M.A. in English Literature in 2006 at Shanghai University (China). She has been a faculty member at Xiangfan Univeristy in China more than five years. She is good at using Flash, PowerPoint and personal web pages.
In her spare time, Yan Ma enjoys listening music, watching movies, hiking and cooking with her husband.
Kristy Bloxham
Kristy is in her first year as a PhD student in the Department of Instructional Technology at Utah State University. Her current research interests include online learning communities, web enhanced learning, and gender issues involving science and math education. She is involved in Instructional Architect (IA) as a volunteer research assistant.
Kristy received her B.A. in Elementary Education in 1986 at USU and her Master's degree in 1988, also at USU. After finishing her Master's degree she started her own educational software development and marketing company. She is now back after a 20 year hiatus to fulfill her lifelong dreams (and yes, she is a little bit crazy).
When not working or going to school Kristy finds great joy in spending time with her husband and 3 children, backpacking, water and snow skiing, laughing, and reading.
Bart Palmer
Bart has been here long enough to be working on his proposal on the way to a Ph.D. in Instructional Technology at Utah State University. He is working on the Instructional Architect as a programmer and is studying webmetrics (or web-o-metrics). His research interests include user studies and teacher–designed resources in the IA.
With a Bachelors of science in Computer Science from Brigham Young University-Provo, and an MS in Instructional Technology (2005), Bart has enjoyed learning just about anything he can get his hands or mind on.
While research is fun an interesting, Bart's family is his most favorite people in the world: a beautiful wife, four very clever boys and beautiful daughter-princess. Other interests include bike riding, (fly|spinner|spear)-fishing (reg-ex), and skiing (not necessarily at the same time...).