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Hello everyone, I am Heather Grimstad.  I am from Indianapolis, and I work at Indiana University Indianapolis in the School of Nursing.  I assist faculty members with learning technologies.  I spend a lot of time helping with Canvas and working on accessibility.

I am working on my certificate, and this is the last class I need to earn it.  I have really enjoyed learning about instructional technology.

I have worked in the private sector with Engineering firms and construction inspection, even though I do not have a degree in either of those fields.  I have also worked in a law firm and a law school.  I have found that these different experiences have helped me find solutions to different problems and offer other viewpoints.

When I am not in school and working, I spend time with my family (my husband, 3-year-old girl, 6-year-old boy, and 4-month-old puppy).  I love being outside, crafting, reading, and doing puzzles. I look forward to working with everyone.

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Hi! I’m Jamie Singleton from Freelandville, Indiana.

I earned my B.S. in Elementary Education from USI, an M.S. in Language Education from IU Bloomington, and a Graduate Certificate in Composition Studies from IU East.

I’ve taught English at Vincennes University for 17 years and am now pursuing an M.Ed. in Instructional Systems Technology at IU Bloomington.

Outside of work, I love cheering on Purdue sports with my family, supporting my boys in golf and cross country, listening to podcasts, and raising chickens.

My graduate studies focus will be on online course design, hybrid and HyFlex learning, blended learning environments, and instructional design. I am also deeply interested in adult learning theory (andragogy), inclusive teaching practices, and the evolving role of AI in education. My professional interests include First-Year Composition, Educational Technology, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), Quality Matters, Accessibility, Instructional Design, Open Educational Resources, and Online Learning.

Let’s connect on LinkedIn!

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Hi Everyone! I’m Nina Valli, checking in from Northern Virginia just outside of D.C. I’m thrilled to be here as I pursue my M.S.Ed in Instructional Systems Technology at IU. By day, I work as a Curriculum Developer at a consulting firm, though our contract with the USMC is winding down later this year. The silver lining is that it gives me the perfect push to fully lean into what I’ve always loved—instructional design.

My professional journey has taken a few interesting turns: I first practiced law (mostly family law), then spent a decade as a high school history teacher, and now design curriculum at the national level. Each step has taught me something new about how people learn and how to make complex ideas clear and engaging.

At home, life is equally full! My husband, a retired Marine, and I are raising three wonderful daughters—and our very spoiled dog, Millie. Our oldest graduated from Notre Dame, commissioned as a U.S. Army officer, and is now a freshly pinned Captain attending the Marine Corps’ Expeditionary Warfare School in Quantico. Our middle daughter recently graduated from American University and is in her first year teaching 3rd grade, while our youngest is a junior at Notre Dame and also plans to join the Army after graduation. (Yes, we’re a proud military family!)

When I’m not working, studying, or cheering on my daughters, you’ll usually find me walking Millie around our neighborhood or curled up with a good psychological thriller.

I’m excited to meet all of you and learn from your experiences on this journey together!

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Hello folks,

My name is Brandon Flom. I'm a 3rd-year Anatomical Education student at IU. I'm originally from Charlotte, NC. I completed my undergraduate studies in Biology at UNCW and my master's degree in Anatomy at Tulane University. My current research interests lie within the realm of gamification, as a dream of mine is to make an engaging anatomy learning application. I also work as a dissector for a pharmaceutical company.

Outside of my professional life, my interests include football (go panthers!), writing sci-fi, and karaoke!

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Hello everyone!

My name is Wing Dai Zhongfang. I am originally from China and am now a permanent resident of Singapore.

I currently serve as the Registrar at KLC International Institute, where my responsibilities include managing student and learning management systems, optimising institutional processes, and facilitating professional development programs. Beyond my professional role, I am also a mother of two daughters, who have taught me just as much about the diversity of learning as my career has.

I am a strong believer and practitioner of lifelong learning. I see a good learning environment as fertile soil, while teaching methods, motivation, and active engagement are like seeds, water, and sunlight. With all these elements in place, learning can flourish with joy, just as plants grow healthily. My ultimate goal is to support individuals - whether children or professionals - in discovering joy and fulfilment in their learning journeys, with the right care and scaffolding along the way.

Outside of work, I enjoy farming, gardening, cooking, a variety of sports, and travelling with my family.

I look forward to learning alongside all of you!

Connect me on LinkedIn : ) www.linkedin.com/in/zhongfang-dai-0bb4b4a6

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Hello everyone!

My name is Amber Maddox, and I’m from Atlanta, Georgia. I am currently a full-time 4th grade teacher with 4 years of classroom experience, and I’m excited to transition into the instructional technology field.

I hold a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Lasell University, a Master of Arts in Elementary Education from Grand Canyon University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communications from Albany State University (Go Rams! 🐏💙💛). I’m also pursuing a certificate in Instructional Technology, which has further fueled my passion for integrating technology into education to enhance student learning.

I consider myself a lifelong learner and a “serial scholar” (lol). I’m deeply interested in the technology side of education and eager to apply my skills to support both students and educators through innovative tech solutions.

Outside of education, I enjoy reading (nonfiction and mysteries are my favorites), watching documentaries and comedies, and spending quality time with my 7-year-old daughter. I also love taking classes, making pottery, and painting—I dabble in the arts whenever I can!

I’m thrilled about breaking into tech and eager to gain the skills and experiences that will allow me to pair my teaching background with technology. If you have tips on transitioning into the tech space or advice on navigating the job market, I’d love to hear from you. I look forward to connecting and learning with you all!

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Hello everyone.  I am Joe Packowski and a teaching faculty member in the Communications, Professional, and Computer Skills Area at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University – Bloomington. After 25 years in industry as a professional and recruiter, I transitioned to academia in 2021 to pay it forward and share my experiences (and many learnings!) with future professionals. My teaching philosophy emphasizes experiential learning and empowerment, creating an innovative, inclusive classroom. I strive to integrate my core values—family, fun, and integrity—into each course and my priority is to help support student well-being, career preparedness, and long-term fulfillment.  In my spare time, I have a passion for acoustic guitar, whole-foods/plant-based living and the Japanese philosophy of Kaizen.

Professional Interests/Development Areas:

Innovative Grading Advocate and co-author (with Dr. Linda B. Nilson) of Specification Grading 2.0: Restoring Rigor, Motivating Students, Saving Faculty Time, and Developing Career Competencies

Workshop leader at Indiana University and external teaching conferences across the U.S.

Certified BlueEQ™ Facilitator in Emotional Intelligence

Certified AI/Gen AI Educator from Indiana University

B.A. in Political Science/Public Policy, University of Rochester

M.P.S. in Organization Development & Change, Penn State

Doctoral candidate in Instructional Systems Technology, IU School of Education

LinkedIn Profile:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/joepackowski/

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Hi folks, my name is Lucas McDaniel, and I'm a full-time staff member at IU. I work within the Kelley School of Business as an IT professional. Though I joined as a member of their IT Help Desk, these days I am a member of their Learning Technologies team, which has me assisting staff and faculty with their use of Canvas, Zoom, Kaltura, and numerous other teaching technologies.

I am a life-long resident of Indiana (for better or worse), and I graduated in 2012 from Indiana State University in Terre Haute with a degree in Automation and Control Engineering. (This is a fancy way of saying I programmed robots and conveyor belts.🤖🏭📦)

IT has always been my first love, and I found myself moving to Bloomington in Spring of 2014 to join Kelley, and I've been there ever since!

I'm a lifelong nerd, video and board gamer, jokester, and cat lover. (Dogs are cool too)

Looking forward to embarking on my first Master's degree with you all!

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Hello Everyone,

I am Chérisse Mahabir-Cletus also known as the Caribbean girl. 🏖 I am originally from the Republic of Trinidad & Tobago, which is a small island off the coast of Venezuela. After 20 plus years in academia, I transitioned from my Assistant Professor and Instructional Designer position at a Medical University in Grenada (another small island also known as the Spice Isle), to big city life in Geneva, Switzerland. I am currently working in training and development at an international organization.

My research interests include: the integration of technology to support student learning, learning strategies support, faculty development, online learning, instructional design and development, universal design, inclusive learning, adult learning in the online environment, and human performance technology.

When I'm not immersed in the world of education, you can find me travelling in search of new cultures and cuisines. I dabble in interior design, fashion design and enjoy fun DIY craft projects. I absolutely love going to the beach, and, well, I have a thing for collecting bags of all kinds (paper, plastic, gift bags, tote bags), you name it! 😄

I’ve had a longstanding relationship with IUB having completed my Masters in IST (2013) and an Ed.D. in IST (2022). Grateful to Dr.B for all his support as my advisor and allowing me to participate in this course. Feel free to reach out if you have questions, share your interests, or just want to chat about life in the Caribbean or Switzerland! 🌞🌴

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Picture from the International Conference on Educational Research (ICER) in Maha Sarakham, Thailand in June 2025.

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Curt Bonk was born in West Allis (a suburb of Milwaukee), Wisconsin. He worked at the Milwaukee County Zoo the summer before college which was the absolute best job of his life; especially, working at the petting zoo and the train station (and seeing his friends, the orangutans every day). In college, he trained as an accountant at the University of Wisconsin Whitewater and later became a corporate controller and CPA. After 4-5 years as a pencil neck, bean counter, and trained monkey who could quickly use a hand calculator to add columns of numbers from a phone book, he became sufficiently bored with that and went to night school. He also took correspondence and TV courses in psychology to qualify for graduate school at the University of Wisconsin Madison where he got his master’s and Ph.D. in educational psychology with a minor in educational technology. A year after starting his graduate degrees, the person he took correspondence courses with, Professor Robert Clasen, hired Curt to help him create a national distributed telecourse called, “Teachers Tackle Thinking: Critical Thinking in the Classroom.” A year later, Curt and a colleague developed a keystroke mapping system and a computer prompting system for critical and creative thinking in writing when using WordPerfect while simultaneously developing the generative-evaluative model of writing and writing as reprocessing model that all became part of his dissertation adventure. After graduation, he worked in educational psychology at West Virginia University in Morgantown (also known as Morganhole due to the coal mining) for 3 years. He has spent the past 33 years at IU; 13 of those years in ed psych and the past 20 years in IST. Do the math—this will be Curt’s 37th year as a faculty member or since the late 1980s. He has authored or edited 20 books in learning technologies and he has published hundreds of research papers. For over two decades, he has been interested in self-directed learning or SDL in open, online, blended, informal, and nontraditional learning environments; most recently SDL with generative AI for online language learning and writing support. The coming spring of 2026, he will teach R678 Emerging Learning Technologies at 7 pm on Monday nights in Room 2101 and he will also teach an online section of the same course. Anyone is allowed to sit in any of his courses—The World is Open for learning as per one of his book titles. Notably, he has taught a version of the R678 course since 1990 which is likely before most of you were born. Curt has a weekly podcast show called Silver Lining for Learning (SLL) which started in March 2020 after getting his arm twisted by friends during COVID. SLL has had over 240 episodes to date. Ironically, one of his podcast partners, Dr. Chris Dede of Harvard who was born and raised a few miles from Curt in Milwaukee, conducted an AI workshop or summit back in the spring of 1990 for the American Educational Research Association (AERA) which inspired Curt to create the initial version of R678. This fall Curt also teaches R511 which is on the foundations of instructional technology and R622 Learning Environments Design; both online. He also has been teaching R795 dissertation proposal preparation and writing and an 8-week course, R546 Instructional Strategies for Critical and Creative Thinking, Collaborative Learning, Motivation, and Technology Integration, including Generative AI pedagogy (hopefully he will teach the latter in the fall of 2026).

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Hi! I am Luci Mello. I am originally from Brazil, but I am also proud of being a citizen of this beautiful nation (the USA). I graduated from the IU Instructional Systems Technology (Ed.D.) in 2021. Regarding my career, after over 15 years in adult education and higher ed, I worked as a senior instructional designer in the corporate sector for a couple of years. But currently I am a federal employee, working as an Instructional Systems Specialist for the Department of Homeland Security at the Harpers Ferry Advanced Training Center in West Virginia. Dr. Bonk has been my advisor and allowed me to be part of R11 this year. I look forward to having great discussions with you!

Luci

My Portfolio

Let's connect on LinkedIn

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