Dr. Stephen C. Ehrmann
Director, Flashlight Program
The TLT Group

OPENING KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Since 1993, Steve Ehrmann has directed the award-winning Flashlight Program on assessment and evaluation. Flashlight's tools, training, consulting and external evaluations help educators guide their own uses of technology, on- and off-campus. As part of his work with Flashlight, Dr. Ehrmann edits a free online journal on evaluation and assessment, F-LIGHT.

Dr. Ehrmann is also well-known in the field of distance education, dating back to his years of funding innovative research and materials in this field when he served as a program officer with the Annenberg/CPB Projects at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (1985-96).  Before that he was a program officer with The Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) (1978-85) and as Director of Educational Research and Assistance at The Evergreen State College. (1975-77)

Dr. Ehrmann has spoken all over the world on hundreds of campuses, and at dozens of conferences on the uses and abuses of technology for improving education and on how to gather evidence to improve the outcomes of educational uses of technology. As a consultant, he helps design program evaluations and helps institutions develop strategies for improving teaching and learning with technology in programs and institution-wide. Steve Ehrmann has written or helped to write four books and over thirty articles in this field, on subjects as varied as the economics of courseware and the future of liberal learning. 

Education:

• Ph.D., Management and Higher Education, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1978
  
• S.B., Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1972
  
• S.B., Urban Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1972

Selected Articles and Web Publications:

• "Factors Affecting the Adoption of Faculty-Developed Academic Software: A Study of Five iCampus Projects", 2006.
  
• Flashlight Evaluation Handbook  (web resource)
  
• "Future of the Learning Space: Breaking Out of the Box," (with Phil Long) EDUCAUSE Review, 2005
  
• "Beyond Computer Literacy: Implications of Technology for the Shape of a College Education"Liberal Education, Fall 2004 and companion web site.
  
• Physical and Virtual Learning Spacs: Planning and Evaluation (web site)
  
  

Dr. Bryan Carter
Associate Professor of EnglishUniversity of Central Missouri

CLOSING KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Dr. Bryan Carter is an Associate Professor of Literature at the University of Central Missouri (UCMO). He specializes in African American literature of the 20^th Century, with a primary focus on the Harlem Renaissance and a secondary emphasis on visual culture.

Dr. Carter created one of the earliest full virtual reality environments in 1997 with his Virtual Harlem dissertation project—a recreation of Harlem, NY as it existed in the 1920s. Virtual Harlem has been presented at numerous venues in the United States, as well as venues in Paris, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Hungary.

In 2004, Dr. Carter was asked to be the project leader for the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne’s effort to create a Virtual Montmartre.  This project resulted in an interactive web site and a small 3-D recreation of the Lapin Agile, the oldest surviving cabaret in Montmartre which is still in operation.

In 2006, the National Black Programming Consortium and the Government of Norway funded the evolution and development of Virtual Harlem and Virtual Montmartre onto the Second Life platform, an online virtual community. Both Harlem and Montmartre were among the most important locations during the Jazz Age/Harlem Renaissance.

For the past two years, Dr. Carter has been teaching classes that meet totally inside Second Life inside his virtual classroom called “Freeside”. He is also actively involved with Virtual Harlem and Virtual Montmartre, where students develop their own interesting, interactive content.

Dr. Carter regularly conducts workshops on Digital Humanities for faculty at UCMO through the Center for Teaching and Learning. His workshops also include topics such as Generational Learning Styles, Blogging, Podcasting, and Second Life.

Education:

Selected Presentations / Articles / Publications:

• Bryan Carter, "Imagine the Real in the Virtual: Experience Your Second Life," presentation at HELIX 2008, April 4, 2008