Author Archives: [email protected]

About [email protected]

I retired as a professor at Brigham Young University (BYU) in 2016 where I was Associate Professor of French and Instructional Pyschology & Technology. I arrived there in 1992 after my retirement as a Lieutenant Colonel from a 20-year career in the US Air Force. Most of that time was spent on the faculty at the US Air Force Academy (USAFA), during what I call my first career. For over forty years I have been creating interactive video applications for supporting language. The lab at the Language Learning Center at USAFA engaged in ground-breaking efforts conducted within a mentored learning setting. The lab’s work involved the development of technologies and instructional design strategies for the use of video in the language acquisition process as well as with architectures that support online learning and facilitate learning about learning. I have a BA in Political Science from BYU, an MBA from the University of Missouri, and a PhD in Foreign Language Education and Computer Science from The Ohio State University. At the Air Force Academy I was a key member of the team that designed what was then the largest interactive videodisc-based learning center on a college campus. When I retired from BYU I directed the ARCLITE Lab, which was involved in the creation of online learning materials for language learning as well as video and interactive technologies for learning.

Storytelling and Education

I have believed for some time that good educational practice is intimately related to the notion of good storytelling. As I was reading today about this massive investment that Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, and other tech leaders are making in … Continue reading

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The Inexorable Advances of Communications Technologies

Have a look at this link,Never mind 4K, or even 8K. Here’s what it’s like shooting at 10K! This absolutely confirms a conclusion I came to years ago: Communications media have been about increasing fidelity and access from the dawn of … Continue reading

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Recent Media Coverage

BYU recently published a press release on the work we have been doing in the lab I direct at BYU, the ARCLITE Lab. ARCLITE stands for Advanced Research in Curriculum for Language Instruction and Technology in Education. For sure, that is … Continue reading

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MOOCs?

Udacity is throwing in the towel on MOOCs with the company’s founder, Sebastian Thrun, declaring that they don’t work for higher education. I described in a recent column in Educational Technology how the primary advantage of MOOCs is that they … Continue reading

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LTI is Helping

We are working with with the Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) Specification in the ARCLITE Lab I direct at Brigham Young University (BYU). This article addresses the future of this specification from the IMS Global Learning Consortium: LTI Standard Promises a Kinder, … Continue reading

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Bill Gates Talks Tech

I have been a fan of Bill Gates for many years now, every since I met and chatted with him on a couple of occasions in 1986 and 1987 at the First Microsoft International Conference on CD-ROM. Work I did … Continue reading

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The Flipped Classroom: Getting Serious

For various reasons the flipped classroom is of particular interest to me. While accountability in any enterprise is one of the key elements of success. what students do outside of the classroom is one of the least accountable aspects of education … Continue reading

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The S-Curve of Educational Video

I just posted the most recent piece in my series of columns, “Educational Technology Points of Inflection.” It explains where educational video is in its development life cycle. Thomas Edison exclaimed as early as 1913 that “It is possible to teach every branch of … Continue reading

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A Love Letter to Educational Technology

I just discovered this “love letter to technology” that Roxanna Elden, a Miami school teacher, wrote for Rick Hess’s blog. She makes some great points in a very creative way.  The Relationship Status of Teachers and Educational Technology: It’s Complicated … Continue reading

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The Internet tsunami (Pew Research)

The Pew Research Center’s Internet Project has published Digital Life 2025, which summarizes the opinions of experts: “Experts predict the Internet will become ‘like electricity’ — less visible, yet more deeply embedded in people’s lives for good and ill.” Jason Hiner of … Continue reading

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