About the Authors
Driving Educational Change: Innovations in Action is the result of a collaboration with graduate students in Learning Technologies Diffusion, Innovation and Change and Dr. Ana-Paula Correia. This graduate course was taught in a blended format at The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio from January to May of 2018.
Ana-Paula Correia, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Learning Technologies in the Department of Educational Studies and the Director of the Center on Education and Training for Employment at The Ohio State University
Dr. Correia has more than 25 years of experience in learning design and instructional systems technology. Specifically, Dr. Correia is an expert in distance education, online and mobile learning, collaborative learning and entrepreneurial education, and has been published in over 30 peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Correia investigates these issues with her research group in Learning & Experience Design at The Ohio State University.
Her work has been published in top-tier academic journals, such as Educational Technology Research & Development, Teachers College Record, British Journal of Educational Technology, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, Computers in Human Behavior and Distance Education. Dr. Correia’s research was awarded for excellence several times by the Association for Educational Communication and Technology as well as the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education. She has innumerable presentations at local, national and international conferences.
Dr. Correia has been involved with research projects funded by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Pappajohn Center/Kauffman Foundation, National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Education and with the National Institutes of Health. She currently serves as the Program Chair for American Educational Research Association Special Interest Group in Online Teaching and Learning. Prior to that role, she was the Chair for Special Interest Group in Design and Technology. She was the President for Association of Educational Communications and Technology Research and Theory Division between 2010 and 2013.
Dr. Correia is currently the Faculty Co-Coordinator for the Master of Learning Technologies, an exclusive online program designed to serve educators interested in pursuing careers in learning technologies. She holds a M.S. and Ph.D. in Instructional Systems Technology from Indiana University-Bloomington.
Marcia Ham is the Distance Education Professional Development Manager with the Office of Distance Education and eLearning (ODEE) at The Ohio State University.
Marcia started up the Distance Education Learning and Teaching Academy (DELTA) at The Ohio State University with the purpose of providing a variety of training and support services specifically for online faculty, students, and advisors of online students. Within the context of her work at ODEE, Ham’s professional expertise focuses on teaching online and creating engaging experiences for online students while maintaining rigorous standards for student learning outcomes.
Prior to working at Ohio State, Ham taught high school social studies for 13 years while serving in various positions ranging from department chair, curriculum coordinator, and teaching with technology committee chair. She then worked for Bake College for five years as an instructional designer where she led faculty training seminars on online course design. She moved to Columbus, OH in 2013 to help ODEE establish their distance education instructional design department. She served as a senior instructional designer with the department while also starting up DELTA until the autumn of 2016 when she transferred to her current manager role in ODEE.
Along with teaching online and facilitating many workshops and webinars at Ohio State, Ham has presented at various conferences including the 2014 OSU Innovate Conference, the EDUCAUSE Annual Conference in 2016 and 2018, and the Ohio Valley Philosophy of Education Society (OVPES) Conference 2017. She was a guest panelist in October 2017 for the Ethics and Big Data in Higher Education discussion at The Ohio State University. She is the co-author of the chapter “Ethical Issues and Potential Unintended Consequences of Data-Based Decision Making” in Responsible Analytics and Data Mining in Education: Global Perspectives on Quality, Support, and Decision Making edited by Badrul H. Khan, Joseph Rene Corbeil, Maria Elena Corbeil (2019).
Marcia Ham has a Bachelor of Arts in Secondary Education from the University of South Florida, a Master’s in Education Technology from Grand Valley State University and is a Ph.D. candidate at The Ohio State University in Educational Policy with a research focus on the ethical implications of student data analytics in higher education.
Cara A. North is a PhD student in Educational Studies with an emphasis in Learning Technologies at The Ohio State University and a Learning Designer for the College of Education and Human Ecology.
Cara holds an M.A. with an emphasis in Workforce Development from The Ohio State University and a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Kentucky. She has worked in learning and development for more than 10 years as a trainer, curriculum developer, learning management systems administrator, and instructional designer. Her learning and development experience include Amazon.com and various non-profit and higher education organizations.
North is committed to lifelong learning and scholarship through her leadership in many organizations. She serves as President of the Central Ohio Association for Talent and Development (ATD), Community Manager for the Training Learning and Development Community (TLDC) and the Communications Officer for the Association for Educational Communications and Technology Research and Theory Division. She is also an inaugural member of the Learning & Experience Design research group at The Ohio State University.
North’s research interests include social media and communities of practice. She is also interested in microlearning and the applications for instructional design. North has been an invited presenter at many learning and development conferences speaking about these topics.
Ceren Korkmaz PhD student in Educational Studies with an emphasis in Learning Technologies at The Ohio State University and an inaugural member of Learning & Experience Design Research Group.
Ceren is also a Graduate Research Associate at the Center on Education and Training for Employment (CETE) within The Ohio State University. Korkmaz received her B.A. in English Language Teaching from Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey in 2013. She then pursued an M.A. in Human Resources Development in Education at the same university. While pursuing her degree, she has worked as an instructor of English and a curriculum developer for the Department of Foreign Languages (DFL) at a foundation university in Ankara, Turkey. Her work involved close contact with young adults as well as various units within the DFL regarding testing, educational technologies, extracurricular activities and professional development. She gave workshops to her colleagues on technology integration and conducted research on faculty technology use in classrooms.
Korkmaz’s recent research at The Ohio State University includes machine learning and its relation to learning technologies and TPACK assessment in pre-service English language teaching. Her work on machine learning was presented at the 2018 OSU EHE Student Research Forum and is currently being developed into a manuscript for publication. Additionally, she investigates model STEM schools in Franklin County, Ohio, USA, and how they can be leveraged to increase the quality of STEM education in the county at large. Her most current research interests are mobile and e-learning, learning experience design, emerging learning technologies and educational entrepreneurship.
Lauren Acree is a graduate student at The Ohio State University where she is pursuing her PhD in Educational Administration. Additionally, Lauren works at the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation where she serves as the program manager for the Learning Differences program and the Micro-Credentialing initiative at the Friday Institute.
Acree has led the development of the Learning Differences Massive Open Online Course for Educators, 40+ micro-credentials in the areas of personalized and digital learning, and the Students Learn Explore and Advocate Differently course for students 13 and up. She has also contributed to content development for a number of projects including the Leadership in Blended and Digital Learning program for principals, Future Ready Summits, and more.
Acree is very comfortable leading learning face-to-face as well and has facilitated a variety of professional learning experiences for teachers, coaches, administrators, and district leaders. Acree’s research interests include the role of leadership in the implementation of digital learning initiatives and innovative models of professional development and using quasi-experimental methods to answer educational research questions.
Previously Acree worked as a special education teacher in Tulsa, Oklahoma and a teacher coach for Teach for America at their summer Institute. Lauren Acree earned her Bachelor’s degree at the University of Richmond in Richmond, Virginia and her Master of Public Policy from Duke University.
Caglar Sulun is a PhD student in Educational Studies with an emphasis in Learning Technologies at The Ohio State University.
A native from Izmir, Turkey, he holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Education and Instructional Technology from Necmettin Erbakan University (NEU) in Turkey and Master of Arts degree in Educational Technology from The Ohio State University. After graduation from NEU in 2012, he moved to the United States to pursue his academic career in educational technologies which he started in 2008.
He works at the Research Laboratory for Digital Learning since August 2014 on educational projects including state-funded projects. His professional interests are directed towards learning analytics, technology integration in teaching and learning in higher education, gamification, and online/mobile learning.
Sulun is also co-founder of Mor Portakal Digital Marketing Agency that is dedicated in using the new century’s gigantic power of the Internet to help businesses grow in social media management, developing websites and mobile applications, cloud solutions for companies, and SEO & SEM. His personal interests include graphic design, educational video production, and photography.
