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Tom joins FITS this summer for a two-year period as the FITS Faculty Coordinator. He will be working with various forms of outreach involving the use of technology in teaching including FITS workshops and the campus-wide movement to Moodle.

Biography:

Tom is Professor of Education Studies at DePauw University. Educated at Wake Forest University (B.A., History) and the University of Virginia (M.Ed. and Ed.D., Social Studies Education and Supervision of Instruction), he taught middle and high school in his native Virginia before pursuing a college teaching career.

A former editor of Middle School Journal for the National Middle School Association (NMSA), he is the author and editor of a wide range of works dealing with a variety of middle school topics including most recently Programs and practices in K-8 schools: Do they meet the educational needs of young adolescents? (with Ken McEwin and Michael Jacobs, National Middle School Association, 2004), America’s middle schools in the new century: Status and progress (with Ken McEwin, National Middle School Association, 2003), and Reinventing the Middle School (Routledge, 2001). He maintains a special interest in middle school teacher education, state and national middle school standards, and the professional development of middle school teachers. A recognized national leader in middle schools, he was one of sixteen middle level educational leaders interviewed and videotaped as part of the Middle Level Education Legacy Project, a collaborative research effort by Appalachian State and Winthrop University, to identify and describe the factors that led to the development, evolution, and progress of contemporary middle school education.

Tom came to DePauw University in 2002 on a two-year leave of absence from Indiana State University where he taught masters and doctoral students in teacher education and was involved in ISU’s distance education program.

Tom’s current engagement involves teaching education studies courses such as the Foundations of Education, the American High School, the History of American Education, and Public School Law. In 2005 he received the DePauw University Nancy Shelly Schaenen Faculty Development Fellowship for 2005-2008. The fellowship was awarded for a study of three progressive educators—John Dewey, Jane Addams, and Maria Montessori. He has served on departmental and university committees including the Speaking (S) Committee, the Committee on Academic Policy and Planning (CAPP) which he chaired during the academic year 2004-2005, the Resource Allocation Subcommittee (RAS), and was the FITS Liaison for Education Studies Department (2004-06). Currently he is participating in the 2007 HP Technology for Teaching Leadership grant exploring the use of tablet pcs and writing instruction.

Expertise: Moodle, DyKnow, Project Management, Microsoft Office, Databases, Reflective Writing.

Biography: Lynda joined FITS in September 2001. She earned an associate of applied science degree in Computer Information Systems from IVY Tech State College in December 2005. Her greatest achievement is being a mom to three terrific sons – a U.S. Marine, a beekeeper, and a video game enthusiast. Lynda enjoys spending time with her kids, cooking, writing, crocheting, and taking walks on the beach (which can be a challenge living in Indiana).

Fun Fact: Lynda once took tae-kwon-do lessons with her children.

In my nearly ten years of professional classical music recording production, I’ve always placed a premium on listening beyond the foreground (the musical performance itself) to the contribution made to the recording by the space in which the performance (and recording) occurs. I believe that the acoustic quality of a space (coupled with its appropriateness for the particular instrument or ensemble to be recorded) is the single greatest determining factor to the quality of any recording made in it.

My path here to DePauw began with the study of music composition at Louisiana State University and the University of Louisiana and musicology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where I became interested in the interplay between music and space. I started recording music as a means of studying this interplay, and became sought after by my colleagues at Stony Brook as a recording engineer. Soon I was able to earn a bit of a living from this work and eventually started a freelance classical recording business, working predominately in Northern California’s San Francisco Bay area. Later I was asked to fill an interim position teaching music technology and audio recording techniques at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, during which time I applied for the new Recording Arts Specialist position here at DePauw. When I started recording in music grad school, it became my hope to one day assume the role of recording engineer at a school of music, so my appointment here at DePauw is really a dream come true.

Fun Fact: I can spin a cafeteria tray on my finger.

Prior to coming to DePauw, Michael worked as an instructional technologist at Tri-State University in Angola, Indiana. There he gained diverse experience in Technology ranging from supporting Tri-State’s Tablet PC initiative, technical training, and supporting Blackboard and DyKnow. Michael is also an experienced web developer and having designed the website www.bradleygoughdiamonds.com and administrating a web forum on technology in education: www.talku.org. Michael earned his B.A. from DePauw in 2005.

In addition to instructional technology, Michael enjoys learning to play guitar, working on projects in his new garage, and experimenting with new technologies.

Fun Fact: Michael has experience wiring a whole house for electrical, phone, and data.