Curriculum Vitae
Yitna Firdyiwek, Ph.D.
Instructional Technology Group
ITC, University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia 22906
Tel.: (434) 924-4055
Email: ybf2u@virginia.edu
Website: http://faculty.virginia.edu/firdyiwek
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ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL
INTERESTS
EDUCATION Ph.D.,
Education, Instructional Technology. University of Virginia, Charlottesville,
Virginia, August 2000. EMPLOYMENT August
2005 - present Over the last three years my responsibilities at UVa have been divided between supporting Faculty Fellows the Teaching + Technology Initiative program, and working with UVa’s Advanced Technology Group on the University’s transition to a new course management system (Sakai, known at UVa as UVaCollab). In addition, as part of the University’s Faculty Entrepreneurship program, I have also been involved with a start-up company, Goha Learning, LLC, which I founded to provide portfolio based course management systems to area independent schools in Virginia. o Teaching
+ Technology Initiative: Over the ten years that the Teaching +
Technology Initiative (TTI) has been in effect at the University, I have been
involved with over one-third of the seventy-two (72) projects our program has
funded. In the last three years, I have been involved in projects on
French cinema, Spanish teacher education, an
interdisciplinary project between Engineering and Architecture courses,
electronic music, and case-based special education, among others. These
projects have been challenging in a variety of ways from development of
faculty technology skills, to management of student employees, and designing
for dissemination of project results beyond the discipline they were designed
for. The 2008-2009 TTI Fellows I will be working with come from
English, Mathematics, Engineering, and French. o UVaCollab: The new course management system (CMS) adopted by the University of Virginia is Sakai (known at UVa as Collab). It is based on an opensource framework that allows institutions to develop its components for their own purposes as well as for sharing within the opensource community. My participation in the rollout of UVaCollab involves selection of default configurations, training of staff and faculty, and exploration of areas for further development. I have been working particularly with Link Tool, a feature of Sakai that allows the CMS to work with external applications. I am interested in this area of educational technology design and I think it will be extremely important in as we move into the area of Web 2.0 technologies. I am also interested in UVaCollab’s electronic portfolio technology which, I believe, will also be an important component of future educational technology design. o Goha Learning, LLC: UVa is well known for its faculty entrepreneurship in the areas such as bio-medical engineering. It is less well known for faculty entrepreneurship in the humanities and social sciences. I joined the UVa Patent Foundation to explore the possibility of building a business out of E-folio, a portfolio based, teacher-centered course management system I developed as part of my research agenda. CourseFolio, as the product is known, targets the middle and high school market of independent schools in Virginia. The experience of running a start-up has been extremely valuable to me and has given me a fresh perspective on the relationship between the commercial and the educational worlds. Out of that, I hope to shape an understanding of how the resources of a commercial venture can be shaped to address the needs of an educational environment.
August 2000
- 2005 o Oversaw faculty-training programs in the use of instructional technology. o Employed a variety of methods ranging from one-on-one instruction to peer review, feedback, and mentoring programs. o Researched current developments in classroom technology and instructional design with an emphasis on web technology and multimedia applications. o Shared knowledge through technical writings and documentation, presentations, and training sessions. o Collaborated with faculty and with the two Instructional Technology Advisors to analyze faculty support needs in instructional technology and, based on input received, developed a set of comprehensive programs to support teaching technology services and applications. o Managed the development and implementation of the Teaching + Technology Support Partners (TTSP) Program. o Designed and delivered training to TTSPs as needed. o Facilitated discussion and effective communication among the TTSPs as they developed their technical and administrative skills. o Attended and actively participated in state and national conferences on instructional technology. o Taught a course periodically in an academic department
January 1997
- August 2000 o Collaborated with faculty Fellows on Teaching + Technology Initiative projects focused on incorporating technology into their curriculum with an emphasis on the use of innovative technologies such as multimedia. o Used instructional design methodology to clarify project goals and requirements and to design systems which realize project goals. o Provided primary technical support to faculty Fellows as needed during the period of the Fellowship, including development of software, configuration of hardware, research and selection of appropriate hardware and software, hardware/software installations, and liaison with other individuals or organizations to provide additional support.
August 1990 -
May 1997 o Teaching (15 credit hrs. per semester):
· English as a Second Language II (5 credits) · English as a Second Language III (5 credits) · College Composition I (3 credits) · College Composition II (3 credits) · Honors Composition I (3 credits) · Honors Composition II (3 credits)
o Research on Portfolios in Writing Instruction:
o Explorations in the use of Computers in Teaching:
PUBLICATIONS
PAPERS, WORKSHOPS &
PRESENTATIONS ·
Philosophy of Technology for Educational Technologists
June 23-30 2001
Old Dominion University SERVICE Institutional (UVa) o Dissertation Committees · Patrick Guilbaud Andragogy & online learning : towards a systematic instruction framework (2007); John Bunch, Chair. · Sam Holtzmann Pedagogy and Technology Inclusion: The Impact of Integrating E-folio into an Existing Curriculum (2006); Robert Covert, Chair. o Member on various technology committees o Member on various hiring committees
Institutional (NVCC) o Co-Chaired the Developmental Writing Assessment Working Group o Produced the "Developmental Assessment" chapter of the College's report on Assessment to the State Council for Higher Education (SCHEV). o Co-wrote the course descriptions of ESL and Developmental English courses for the 1992-93 SCHEV report o Developed guidelines, through faculty survey, for setting minimum computer competency requirements for students graduating with NVCC degrees. (Fall 1991). o Participated on Loudoun Campus Committee for Computers in the Classroom charged with:
o Consultation and recommendations to Unicode Consortium on Ethiopian script (currently implemented in Unicode 3.0) o Developed and placed in public domain a computer keyboard layout system for use of Ethiopic script in WordPerfect 5.1
Fundraising for People to People, a non-governmental organization helping AIDS orphans in Ethiopia.
REFERENCES References are
available upon request. |