Blackboard

Bob Boufford

Bob is team lead in e-Learning Support and Development at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. After a few years with WebCT as a master trainer/instructor traveling around the United States, Canada and occasionally overseas, he has settled down at one place and is now a resident of Canada. Bob has been involved with WebCT since version 1.1 where, in his position as college Web administrator for a small Midwest community college in the United States, he was responsible for administration and training of WebCT, along with developing several WebCT courses to augment his various courses as associate professor of Horticulture. Bob, with a colleague, also teaches a fully online course through Blackboard software at the University of Calgary. When he is away from the office, Bob enjoys homebrewing beer and learning how to be a Canadian. He joined "Ask Dr. C" in 2000.

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Ben Carmichael

Ben is currently a Blackboard Client Support Engineer and works in our Tier II support team in Sydney, Australia. Prior to that, Ben was the Application Administrator for the WebCT Vista installation at Monash University. Monash is Australia's largest University and supports over 50,000 students and 2,000 academic staff, with one of the largest single-institution Vista installations anywhere in the world.

Ben has worked not only on the technical side, having taught introductory Java programming using Vista and worked closely to develop courses of excellence with teaching staff within Monash.

Additionally, Ben was the co-chair of the Asia-Pacific CE and Vista User Group and worked to build that group to one of the largest and most organized User Groups worldwide. The group has representation from over 110 institutions and reaches over 90% of the CE/Vista users in the Australian and New Zealand region, and 70% of users within Asia-Pacific. He joined “Ask Dr. C” in 2009.

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Dirk Funk

Dirk Funk is our resident K-12 Dr. C.  Since the year 2000 Dirk Funk has been the Instructional Technology Facilitator the 15 campuses of Tascosa Cluster in the Amarillo Independent School District.  Since 2001, Dirk also has served as the district’s Blackboard system administrator which consists of coordinating the district’s course development in Blackboard and training teachers and staff across the district.  Dirk helped design and develop Amarillo ISD’s first electronic delivery of the K-12 curriculum and standards using Blackboard’s Content System.  This project earned Amarillo ISD the Greenhouse award in 2006.  He has also reached out to other K-12 institutions throughout the country in order to help promote innovative and effective uses of Learning, Content, and Community Systems, and Scholar. Prior to this Dirk earned his Master’s in Education and was a Special Education teacher in the middle and high school levels. Before that he was a Franciscan Brother in the province of Our Lady of Guadalupe New Mexico.

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Leo Havemann

Leo Havemann works in learning technology at Birkbeck, University of London, one of a consortium of five London colleges who share a single Blackboard installation branded the Bloomsbury Learning Environment. Leo graduated in English and Media at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand, and while working toward his master’s degree worked as a tutor in literature, media, academic writing and business communication. He continued teaching in communication studies at the University of South Australia in Adelaide, before moving to England and working in the commercial IT sector for several years. He then returned to the education sector working in library and e-learning services in further education, prior to joining Birkbeck in 2008.

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Eric Kunnen

Eric is a coordinator of instructional technologies at Grand Rapids Community College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His primary role focuses on supporting faculty professional development on using technology in teaching and learning. He has used Blackboard technology since 1999—back then it was "Blackboard CourseInfo 4"—and has been involved in system administration, project management for upgrades, faculty training and end user support. He's a frequent participant on listservs, is involved in beta testing and the Product Development Partnership Program, and is a member of the Blackboard Idea Exchange steering committee. Eric has a background in teaching computer science and biology at the secondary level and a master of arts in education with an emphasis in educational technology. He joined “Ask Dr. C” in 2006.

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Brian Morgan

Brian Morgan is currently an assistant professor in the Integrated Science and Technology Department at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia. Brian, a native of Chesapeake, Ohio, is the program coordinator for the Computer and Information Technology major, advising 60+ students each year on education and IT career choices. Brian teaches computer programming, database management, GIS, and e-commerce courses both in the traditional classroom and as courses that are delivered 100% electronically. He has experience with many programming languages, such as VB, VB.NET, C, C++, PHP, ASP, Java and SQL. He has been using WebCT since its inception in 1996. Before joining the faculty at Marshall University, he served as the school's WebCT administrator and trainer for nearly four years and currently serves as a part-time trainer through Blackboard's Certified Trainer Program. When he doesn't have a keyboard attached to his wrists, Brian enjoys spending time with his wife and three children, and working as a self-proclaimed do-it-yourselfer. He joined “Ask Dr. C” in 2000.

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Santo Nucifora

Santo Nucifora is the manager of systems development and innovation within the Information Technology and Telecommunication department of Seneca College. In his 16 years at Seneca College, Santo started his specialization in technical support and training, and later shifted his efforts to Internet-based technologies. Santo has implemented several innovative core-business tools for the college, including the majority of the components within the Sun Java Enterprise System stack, such as Directory Services, E-mail, Calendar, Web services and Web Application Services. Most notable in his career is the architecture and creation of Canada's first enterprise-class Internet-based Registration System (SIRIS) back in 1996. Among other college-wide IT initiatives, Santo was instrumental in the procurement and architecture of the Blackboard Academic Suite, and designed and implemented the My.Seneca personal portal system based on the Blackboard Academic Suite within a Sun Microsystems operating environment. Santo leads the My.Seneca team, the Systems Development and Innovation Web development team and the Web services team. Santo continues to focus on emerging Internet standards and continued development and deployment of innovative Internet-based tools. He joined “Ask Dr. C” in 2006.

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Harold G. Powers

Harold is the project manager for the WebCT Group at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia, and has been working with WebCT since 1998. His role focuses on implementation and management of the university’s system-wide WebCT servers for use in the online delivery of courses offered by the 34 public University System of Georgia (USG) institutions. Harold is also actively involved with system-wide faculty development on the use of WebCT from a pedagogical-based teaching and learning perspective. Besides his teaching and learning perspective of WebCT, Harold also has a firm base in the administration and management of WebCT Vista and Campus Edition.

Prior to joining Georgia State University, he was at Georgia College and State University as an instructor and involved with faculty development. Harold has a M.Ed. in instructional technology and his teaching background includes experience in the middle grades, higher education and corporate training. He joined “Ask Dr. C” in 2004.

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Kevin Reeve

Kevin is an instructional designer at the Faculty Assistance Center for Teaching, Utah State University. His area of expertise is multimedia tools and technologies. His online course “Learn and Apply HTML” was recognized as an Exemplary Course in the 2002 WebCT Exemplary Course competition. Kevin has been using WebCT/Blackboard products since 1997, and has been helping faculty move their courses online ever sense. His research area of interest is with interactive learning objects, especially those using SCORM. Kevin is a Vista Certified Trainer and really enjoys teaching others how to use Blackboard technology to meet their instructional goals. Kevin is currently working on a small HO scale model railroad in his house, is an amateur radio operator and a Boy Scout leader. He joined “Ask Dr. C” in 2004.

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Henk van Rijssen

Henk is a Blackboard system administrator at ROC Midden Nederland in the Netherlands. He has a background in teaching and instructional design, and works closely with faculty to realize their ideas about supporting competence-based learning. He joined “Ask Dr. C” in 2006.

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Mike Zimmerman

Mike Zimmerman is a systems administrator at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO), and has been managing their Blackboard system since 2001. He came on board to work with the team integrating UNO's original CourseInfo server with the SIS system and has been actively involved in the Blackboard user community since then. Prior to joining UNO, Mike spent many years doing library work—he's still a librarian at heart—before getting a degree in computer science at the University of South Florida and starting his IT career as Solaris administrator and Webmaster at Penn State's Population Research Institute in the mid 1990's. When not in front of a computer, Mike enjoys family time or playing bass in local bands. He joined “Ask Dr. C” in 2006.

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