Gary Schwartz Gary Schwartz, Director of Communications&Middleware Technologies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, has over 25 years experience in Higher Ed IT, first as a programmer, and subsequently in management. His present responsibilities include centralized email, directory, and web services and middleware, and web software development. He is the project manager and spokesperson for Bedework, the open source, enterprise calendaring system for Higher Ed.
Stuart sim
Stuart Sim Stuart Sim serves as the Chief Technology Officers and Chief Architect of
Moodlerooms , which provides comprehensive technical support services to the
Moodle course management system open source software.
Stuart has spent the past 15 years developing enterprise solutions around the world in the education and financial sectors. His core expertise is in the design and delivery of large-scale implementations using combinations of classic and innovative development methodologies in distributed multi-disciplinary environments.
Joel thierstein
Joel Thierstein Dr. Joel Thierstein serves as the Associate Provost for Innovative Scholarly Communication at Rice University and Executive Director of
Connexions . Prior to coming to Rice, Joel served as an Associate Professor and Director of New Media Communications at Oregon State University. He also served as a professor at Baylor University, Purdue University Calumet, and Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. Dr. Thierstein has also served as a visiting professor of Communications Law at Syracuse University.
Writing extensively in telecommunications, Joel’s books include Birds In Flight: Satellites In The New Millennium, 3rd ed. and Religion, Law and Freedom: A Global Perspective. In addition, to Joel’s obvious commitment to open and sustainable education, he also has served as a Board member of Fossil Rim Wildlife Center since 2000 and Board Chair since 2003, and has worked extensively with the Conservation Centers for Species Survival.
Kim tucker
Kim Tucker Kim Tucker is our fourth guest contributor to this series and will be writing on a number of related topics that integrate
Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) and free knowledge and equality in education, while also posing questions about what we mean by equality in education and the implications for digital inclusion. The term “libre” refers to distinguish freeware (gratis software) from
free software , which encompasses use, modification, and distribution. Kim is currently working as a researcher at the
Meraka Institute, managed by the
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa. The main focus of his research is the introduction of technology and collaborative learning opportunities, and FLOSS for knowledge sharing and education. Kim also provides general advocacy of FLOSS and libre knowledge. His background includes some cognitive psychology, computer science lecturing, environmental decision support-systems development and other aspects of software development (Java, architecture, patterns, agile methodologies, etc.), and conservation biology (M.Sc.).
Martin weller
Martin Weller Martin Weller is Professor of Educational Technology at the
Open University in the UK . He chaired the OU’s first major online course with 15,000 students, was the VLE Project Director and is now Director of the SocialLearn project. His interests are in elearning, web 2.0 and the implications of new technologies for higher education. He blogs at
edtechie.net .
His post will look at the SocialLearn project, which is the Open University’s attempt to create an open API-based social networking system for learning. He will look at the motivations behind the project, what it hopes to achieve and how the technology is being used as the medium through which the institution itself comes to understand the changes happening in society and in education as a result of digital technologies.
David wiley
David Wiley David Wiley currently serves as an Associate Professor of Instructional Technology and also the Director of the
Center for Open and Sustainable Learning, (C()SL) , at Utah State University. He is best known for having coined the term Open Content and creating the first open source-style license for non-software. His work on open content, open education, and informal online learning communities has been reported in many international outlets. His leadership in the open education resource is widely recognized.
Richard wyles
Richard Wyles
Richard’s OSS series contribution focused around innovation for education and the infrastructure of New Zealand’s education system. Richard Wyles is a director and co-founder of
Flexible Learning Network Ltd, a private company focused on flexible learning solutions for the education, corporate training and public sectors. For the past four years Richard has been leading national eLearning infrastructure projects in New Zealand, underpinned by open source and particularly Moodle. A full-time development team, now numbering around 10 programmers has been working continuously on
Moodle and related open source projects since May 2004. Within a short period of time, Moodle is now the most widely used Learning Management System in New Zealand, particularly in the post-secondary vocational educational sector and increasingly within government sector departments.
