Higher Education LTAC Leaders:
 Ruth Ann Balla has over twenty years of experience working with technology in higher education. Ruth Ann is the Executive Director of the Virtual College at Miami Dade College in Miami Florida. In her current role, she oversees all aspects of distance education at Miami Dade College. Ruth Ann is leading the implementation of a new LMS (ANGEL) that will be used by credit, non-credit and community education classes. The Virtual College has seen growth rates over 25% for several years and last year had over 26,000 enrollments in online courses. Prior to her work with Miami Dade College, Ruth Ann was a CIO and then a Regional Manager for SunGard Higher Education (formerly Collegis). She worked with client institutions on reorganizing IT departments, planning projects, and supporting technology for business processes and for academics. For over fifteen years, Ruth Ann headed the Information Technology Department at Meredith College. During that time, a new student information system was implemented, the use of academic technology flourished and a laptop program for students was initiated. Ruth Ann holds a BS in Environmental Science and a BS in Computer Science from Wilkes University, Pennsylvania and a MS in Computer Science from North Carolina State University.
.gif) Michael Feldstein is a Principal Product Manager for Oracle's Academic Enterprise Solutions group. He has been involved in educational technology for over a decade and in open source educational technology since 2001. He has been invited to speak on topics including e-learning usability, LMS evaluation methods, ePortfolios, and edupatents for organizations ranging from the eLearning Guild to the Postsecondary Electronic Standards Council, and has been interviewed as an e-learning expert by a variety of media outlets, including The Chronicle of Higher Education, the Associated Press, and U.S. News and World Report. Michael is also author of the e-Literate educational technology weblog.
 Dr. Robbie Kendall-Melton is the Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Educational Technology and the Tennessee Board of Regents' Executive Director at the Renaissance Center (TBR). Her chief responsibilities include coordinating TBR's Regents Online Degree Programs, Faculty-Staff Development in Technology, Online Teaching and Learning Initiatives, Technology Innovations, and System wide Distance Education.
Dr. Melton has held several executive leadership positions during her twenty-eight year career in education including the Associate Dean of Education at The University of Tennessee at Martin, Director of the Center of Excellence in Early Childhood Special Education at Winthrop University, Coordinator of the Center for Excellence in Special Education and Vocational Education at Tennessee State University, Director of Special Education for the City of Hamtramck, Michigan, and Assistant Director of Special Education for Detroit Public Schools, and numerous Director of Grants and Special Projects for Michigan, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington.
She has received numerous teaching and technology awards including the 1998 Outstanding Teaching and Advisor, 1996 Outstanding Teaching Alumni Award from The University of Tennessee, 1994 Tennessee Professor of the Year presented by the Carnegie Foundation of Teaching and Council for Advancement and Support of Education, 1990 Outstanding Professor and University Services at Winthrop College, the Zenith Master of Innovations Award, and the South Central Bell Award for Outstanding Teaching Using Emerging Technologies. She has authored, presented nationally and internationally, directed staff and faculty training, and taught various seminars and courses in the area of "Effective Teaching and Enhanced Learning Employing Technology."
 Suzanne Lapointe has over twenty years of experience working with technology in higher education. Suzanne is assisting the Technology and Academic Service’s Director at the Tele-University, a distance education university in Quebec, Canada. She is leading the implementation of the institutional LMS (Concepta). As the technology transfer officer, she is responsible for the diffusion and support of technologies developed by the university’s researchers. She is involved in many object repository projects in Quebec and Canada for all level of education. She is member of Globe, an alliance of the most important object repositories in the world. She is also vice-president of communication of a group working on development and implementation of norms and standards in education (GTN-Quebec). Suzanne holds a BS and a in MIS and from University of Quebec in Montreal.
 Ross Mackenzie is the Strategic Development Manager responsible for Learning and Teaching Systems at the Open University. He has a PhD in Physics, an MSc in Physics of Materials and BSc in Physics from University of Bristol, and carried out post-doctoral research in Materials Science at Cornell University and at the University of Oxford. Ross joined the Open University in 1995 as a software designer and over the last 13 years has contributed to the development of a wide range of online learning and teaching systems. Ross currently leads the teams responsible for the development and support of the Open University Virtual Learning Environment and of the OpenLearn platform which is used to make Open University open educational resources available to the international community.
 Dr Stephen Marshall is a Senior Lecturer in Educational Technology at the University Teaching Development Centre, Victoria University of Wellington New Zealand. Stephen is a member of the New Zealand Ministry of Education Tertiary E-Learning Reference Group and Chair of the E-Learning Directors of the New Zealand Universities Group. Stephen has published over fifty papers and reports in the areas of e-learning benchmarking, plagiarism and academic integrity, intellectual property and the development of policy and strategy to support and encourage the effective use of technology.
 Dr. Gloria Pickar has been the President of Compass Knowledge Group since 2004 and the Chief Academic Officer since 1999. Compass Knowledge is a company of 165 employees, providing e-learning services to recruit and retain distance learning students and build online courses for graduate and undergraduate degree and certificate programs in partnership with select higher education institutions, such as University of Florida, Boston University, and Northwestern University. In addition to eight years in the corporate setting, she has over 25 years of higher education leadership and faculty experience with 11 years as an academic dean. She is responsible for the company’s relationship with all university partners and oversees company operations relative to e-learning, faculty and student services, and business development. Dr. Pickar has broad higher education experience in healthcare, education, and business. She directed nursing and other health programs from start-up through professional accreditation. She has served on the faculties of both community colleges and universities in Florida including Seminole Community College, Valencia Community College, University of Florida, and Florida Southern College. Dr. Pickar earned her Bachelor’s degree in Nursing, Master’s degree in Nursing Education, and Doctoral degree in Higher Education Administration from the University of Florida. Her nursing and higher education career includes two years as a corporate and personal wellness counselor and consultant. She is a regular presenter at national conferences, co-author of the 2007 Best Paper for the Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, and named among Florida’s Top Women-Led Businesses in 2007 and 2008 by the Commonwealth Institute. Gloria authored two nursing textbooks published by Cengage Learning; the first textbook, Dosage Calculations, is a bestseller currently in its 8th edition
 Judith Redoli is currently a telecommunications professor at University of Alcala (Madrid, Spain), and a university researcher. Born in 1968, she has a PhD in Telecommunications Engineering and prior to her present position, she learned the commercial profession as an interim key account manager. Previously, she also worked as a university professor while researching for a technological centre, and a cable operator, developing and introducing innovations in enterprises. Now her research activities are devoted to searching new methodologies for the entrepreneurial education of young telecommunication engineers. This research includes e-learning research and e-learning materials production. She began to research e-learning in the early days of this technology (1995).The research team was always interdisciplinary. There was a close relationship between engineers and education specialists. With respect to broadband networks and services, she collaborated with the regional government in the promotion of innovative Information Society services and with a cable operator to introduce the novel hybrid-coaxial technology in Spain. The research was completed with several early broadband services pilot projects. (www.judithredoli.com http://blog.judithredoli.com )
K12 LTAC Leaders:
 Yong-Sang Cho is a principal researcher and director of the Korea Education & Research Information Service (KERIS) which is government institution of Ministry of Education & Science Technology (MEST) in Korea and a member of the Korean ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36 Committee.
He has over 10 years experience in developing learning-related technology, including modelling information system, network architecture and standards, etc. Prior to his role as key researcher of KERIS, Yong-Sang has been research & develop the Cyber Home Learning System which is nationwide e-Learning system in field of K-12 and published several e-Learning standardization reports and articles about Educational Metadata and Ontology, Learning Design, Common Cartridge, SCORM, and Question and Test Interoperability, etc.
He has launched IMS Korea with seven representative e-Learning corporations in 2008 and has been conducting ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36 project co-editor for MLR (Metadata for Learning Resources) and Content Packaging based on IMS Content Packaging v1.2
 Bruce Chynoweth is currently the Director of Product Management at Editure, an Australian company providing education technology services to over 7000 schools internationally, where he is responsible for strategic planning and product development. His 25 years in the education field, including 18 years as a high school teacher, together with extensive travel throughout Australia, the United States and United Kingdom conducting ICT enabled professional development for teachers, provide the backdrop for his work focussed on standards based online learning environments in K-12 classrooms.
 Jim Hirsch is in his 34th year serving public education and promoting the use of educational technology embedded in student-centered curriculum. During that time he has worked with thousands of teachers and administrators across the United States and Canada to integrate technology into their daily classroom teaching and learning activities. Hirsch spent the first 21 years of his career with the Anoka-Hennepin School District in Minnesota, leading a variety of technology implementations including one of the first large district wide area networks and an early adopter of providing online curriculum support via the Internet. In his current role as Associate Superintendent for Academic and Technology Services in Plano ISD, a district of 53,500 students, Jim directs all curriculum, instruction, fine arts, professional development, special education, instructional technology and infrastructure/technical support activities for the district.
Hirsch is a Past-Chair of the Board for the Consortium for School Networking, a Washington, DC based advocacy group and serves on the editorial advisory boards for Scholastic Administr@tor and eSchool News. Recent recognitions have included being named as an Ed Tech Leader of the Year Finalist by Technology + Learning magazine, the eSchool News Impact 30 group of educational technology leaders, the ComputerWorld Premier 100 List and the InfoWorld 100 Innovation Award. An author of over 100 articles and three books on the use of technology in a variety of educational settings – most recently a series on technology leadership for AASA, he also provides workshops and conference sessions throughout the United States each year. Jim is known for his ability as “a visionary with detail” to take promising technologies and finding practical applications for them in the hands of students and teachers to positively impact achievement. His current focus is on personal, ubiquitous computing and open technologies.
 Sharnell Jackson is Chief E-Learning Officerat the Chicago public school system. Sharnell is responsible for training teachers and administrators in data analysis, interpretation of student academic achievement result and effective use of technology for curriculum instruction. It is her role to identify innovative technology solutions and systems to monitor academic progress and oversee execution of the district’s online digital content from publishers, curriculum instruction and assessment management systems, principal’s technology leadership institute, and 21st century teaching and learning skills for schools, educators, and students. For more than thirty-four years, her focus has been on minimizing the data reporting burden for schools while maximizing data quality, effective use of multiple measures of assessment and alignment of digital online resources to individualize student learning needs. She has provided leadership and managed the implementation of educational technology programs that have impacted literally hundreds of thousands of students, teachers, administrators and parents over the course of her career
 Bob Moore is the Executive Director of Information Technology for Blue Valley Schools, a school district of 21,000 students in Overland Park, Kansas. He has enjoyed a career of nearly 20 years in educational technology leadership, the past 14 in Blue Valley. Bob has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the CoSN for the past 8 years, including a two-year term as chairman. He is also active as a member of the National Education Advisory Board for Cable in the Classroom, Dell Computer’s K-12 Platinum Advisory Council and Microsoft’s K-12 Advisory Council, as well as the editorial advisory boards of eSchool News and Scholastic Administr@tor publications.
.gif) Ed Zaiontz is the Executive Director of the Information Services Department for Round Rock ISD, a suburban school district with approximately 41,000 students and 46 facilities, Mr. Zaiontz is responsible for the planning, implementation, and support for all technology resources associated with voice, video, and data networks. This includes all administrative applications, LAN/WAN support, and PC hardware maintenance and support.
Mr. Zaiontz came to Round Rock ISD in 1983 as the Instructional Technology Coordinator. As a result of a reorganization of the central office in 1992, Mr. Zaiontz was promoted to the Executive Director position.
Prior to joining Round Rock ISD, Mr. Zaiontz was a successful junior high school math teacher for the Austin Independent School District and worked for a regional education service center in Austin. Ed completed two undergraduate degrees and a master’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin.
Mr. Zaiontz is the Past-Chair of the Texas K-12 CTO Council, the first state chapter for CoSN, and is currently the Chair-Elect for the CoSN Board of Directors. |
