Senior Learning Designer
2017
My career journey
I have a Bachelor’s degree in Music, a Master’s degree in Public Health and a Doctorate in Adult Education from National Louis University. As National Director of a non-profit, I developed community based health education programs, here and in Australia and Great Britain throughout 80s and 90s. I was a delegate to the United Nations department of Public Information from 1997 to 2000. I transitioned to teaching at the college level in 2001 and began working with faculty at Columbia College Chicago to develop online courses in 2005. I launched and managed the school learning management system from 2008 to 2015. My doctoral dissertation in Adult and Continuing Education from National Louis University is entitled Resonating Frequencies of a Virtual Learning Community: An Ethnographic Case Study of Online Faculty Development at Columbia College Chicago.
My inspiration
My lifetime’s work in education and passion for music and technology have converged into my practice as a Senior Learning Designer and Adjunct Lecturer teaching graduate students how to design learning environments. I was inspired to work on my doctorate bridging the gap between adult education and distance learning through the pioneering work of a fellow Australian, Martin Dougiamas, who developed the Moodle learning management system as a result of his own doctoral studies in distance learning in the Australian outback.
Where I’m from/Where I am at
I was born in the rural Australia town of Lockhart but spent my formative years in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs where I surfed as a teenager at famous Bondi Beach. I moved to Chicago to study music in 1978 as Roosevelt University had one of only two Moog Synthesizers at the time. I was determined to study electronic music and was already passionate about technology so Chicago was the logical destination. After completing my degree and the birth of our first son, my wife (whom I met while at Roosevelt) and I returned Australia for several years where we had our second son. However we decided to return to Chicago in 1986, and had our third son in 1987. We settled in Elmhurst, which was my wife’s hometown and raised our three children there. While the children all moved out, we remained in this iconic midwest town, also home to the famous Frank Lloyd Wright apprentice Walter Burley Griffin, who was destined to design Australia’s Capital City, Canberra.
My interests outside of work
I still enjoy composing and playing music, as well as experimenting with new technologies and ways of designing and improving learning environments and online courses. Over the years, we have been extremely active in civic life, with my wife serving as PTA President at one time and me serving on the City Council as both a Youth Commissioner and Alderman. These days, my wife and I enjoy the Midwest fauna and flora and our yard in Elmhurst, where we still see deer, raccoons, groundhogs, chipmunks, and hundreds of different types of birds. We love it!
Rewards of my job
Without hesitation, the most rewarding part of my job is the challenge of building online courses that are not just virtual classrooms but also thriving learning communities. These learning environments have the power to transform lives and create new ways of learning, thinking, and living in our world. While I could provide many examples of traditional courses that have been developed or revised in creative ways, perhaps one of the most rewarding experiences for me has been the development of an entirely new game-based discussion board called Discussion Hero. It was developed as a collaborative effort between fellow learning designer Jacob Guerra-Martinez, myself, and Northwestern’s Information Technology Services & Support Teaching & Learning Technologies developer Jacob Collins. The project was supported in part by the Provost’s Digital Learning Fellowship.
Discussion Hero is designed to put participants into two distinct roles in the discussion boards, Heroes and Villains, and have them engage in a fun and debate-style discussion while being anonymous and masked by selected avatars. I have used it with my own students, and they love it. We are seeing a few more courses using it, and it will only grow and get better over time. This home-grown innovation could only have happened here at Northwestern University: A community of educators dedicated to finding new ways to teach and learn better. I am proud to be a part of it.