Cathy Arreguin lives, works and collaborates at a distance from her home in the Sierra foothills in Northern California. With many years in both K12 and non-profit work, developing curriculum, training and educational media for both children and adults, she now divides her time developing instruction and supporting educators in both secondary and higher education. Through pICT (People, Information, Communication & Technology), she supports San Diego State University faculty and administrators in their use of Second Life and other virtual worlds as a new medium for instruction. She also teaches EDTEC700 Multiuser Learning Environments and provides support for other EDTEC courses. Her recent work includes virtual world curriculum development for Global Kids, Inc. an educational non-profit based in New York City. She also is an ongoing consultant for educational video and training projects at SchoolMedia in Northern California. Cathy has a M.ED in Educational Technology from San Diego State University and a B.A. in Psychology from UCLA. Her ongoing interest is in technology related professional development as well as in the development of comprehensive systems that provide educators and trainers the support they need to both design and implement innovative and effective learning experiences for their students. |
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 My name is Jeff Dungan. Currently I live with my wife and two kids (ages 2 and 5) in Shanghai, China. I am a Technology Integration Specialist at the Shanghai American School. We have lived overseas for almost a decade now teaching in Cartagena, Colombia and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. This course is my last course to finish the Instructional Technology Certificate. I am unsure whether to continue on for the masters or transfer somewhere else and start working on a ph.D in Distance Education/e-learning. When not working you can find me on the water where ever it is windy. I love to surf and kitesurf and have been a competitive sailor for many years now. |
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After graduating from SDSU I decided to go abroad and do the ESL teaching thing. After spending time living and working in Central America and Asia, I returned to lovely San Diego. I spent a year getting married and discovering the wonderful world of Ed Tech. However, after getting into the program, I'm now back for one more stint in Korea and doing the distance program from there. I enjoy long walks on the beach and late night ice cream, but I'm trading them in for one more year of Kimchi, galbi, and soju. It's been strange taking classes from the far east, but very nice to have the western connection. |
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My name is Andrzej Bojarczak. I originally come from Poland, where I got my Polish master’s degree in English Philology in 1980. I started my teaching career as an English instructor at the University of Wroclaw, my alma mater. In 1984 my wife and I left our native country and went to Sweden. We stayed there for almost three years and had a chance to learn Swedish. That was my fourth foreign language, after learning Russian, English and some French back in Poland. In 1986 we landed on American soil and I soon started teaching English as a Second Language in a number of adult schools and community colleges in Southern California. From 1990 to 1993 I studied at CSU Fullerton and graduated with a master’s degree in Education/TESOL. After ten years of freeway flying, I settled down at Pasadena City College, where I still teach as a full-time ESL instructor, focusing on speaking and listening courses. I have always been interested in technology. To learn more about educational applications of currently available technology, I have decided to pursue the Certificate in Instructional Technology at SDSU. I hope I will be able to use the new skills in my teaching. |
 Hello everybody! I'm Reshma from Mumbai, India. I hold a bachelor's degree in electronics engineering and started my career as a technical communicator. A couple of years later, I took up a short-term assignment with an e-learning provider. It was a wonderful experience, and I moved to training content development full-time. Currently, I work as an instructional designer with a company that provides training content development services. My company primarily creates self-paced, Web-based training programs for IT and K-12 courseware publishers, so I don't have much experience developing instructor-led training programs and am hoping to enhance my skills in this area. I look forward to taking this course with you all! |
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Mary Prine, Associate professor, San Diego Community College. |
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 Dominique Turnbow: I am a librarian at the UCSD Biomedical Library. I have been a librarian for six years and during that time have become more interested in how librarians can more effectively teach information literacy skills to students. (I define "information literacy" as the ability to locate, find, evaluate, and use information effectively and ethically.) I hope to use knowledge gained in this program to improve my library instruction skills. This is my final course for the certificate program. |
 Ken Leek: I graduated with my bachelor's degree from SDSU with distinction in Psychology in 1995. Shortly afterwards, I had gone through the multiple subject teaching credential program at SDSU. Unfortunately, finding a permanent teaching position was hard to come by in San Diego. I wasn't willing to move at that time in my life, so I went back to school again. This time, I went for a year at AIC to receive a certificate in web page design. That is where I learned how to use Illustrator, Photoshop, Quark, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, Director, and Premiere (too bad I can't remember as much as I would like).I started working for various record labels designing CDs, LPs, and web sites after completing my studies at AIC. It was at this time I underwent a surgery on my right shoulder which left me unable to work at a computer for many years. Finally, once I had recovered enough from my surgery, I moved to Fort Washington, MD to teach sixth grade Math and Science. Although I enjoyed the students, the politics of being a public school teacher proved too tiring for me and I left after one year to come back to San Diego and attain my master's degree in Educational Technology. |
I hold a Masters degree in English Literature. I started my career as a journalist but soon realized that journalism was not for me. Destiny landed me a job as an Instructional Designer in an e-learning firm, at a time when the e-learning industry was still at its nascent stage in India. It’s been quite a journey and I’ve had the opportunity to work on educational CDs (computer-based training) as well as web-based technologies. After having worked on a product that catered to the K-12 segment, I’ve been eager to explore the possibilities of e-learning in enhancing and enriching K-12 education. And I hope this Edtech course will be a step in that direction. On the personal front, I’m married and have a sweet little angel as my son. I love to collect stuff that people generally label as “junk” – bottles that have a unique shape, ornamental boxes, credit cards that are no longer valid etc. Look forward to working with you all! |
 Shawn Shepard: I'm a fourth generation San Diegan; my father's family has lived in San Diego County at least since the late 1800s. I graduated from St. Didacus in Normal Heights in 1966, spent my Freshman and Sophomore years at University of San Diego High School, and graduated from Hoover High in 1970. After high school, I flirted with junior college before joining the U.S. Coast Guard. As a Seaman and Boatswain's Mate, I spent 2-1/2 years traveling between the Arctic and the Antarctic, then 1-1/2 years cruising San Diego Harbor in a 17' boat looking for oil spills. After graduating from SDSU in 1980 with a BA in English, I worked as a proofreader for 7 years for a typesetting company. After getting a certificate from SDSU in technical writing in 1987, I went to work as a Technical Writer for an Uninterruptible Power Systems (UPS) manufacturer here in San Diego. I worked in the same building for the next 18 years, survived a never-ending string of company sales, mergers, and reorganizations, and rose from Technical Writer to Technical Communications Manager to Software Quality Assurance Manager. Unfortunately, my position moved to Raleigh, North Carolina (and later to Pittsburg), but I wasn't willing to leave San Diego. I tried Real Estate for awhile, but had the misfortune of starting my real estate career in the very month the housing bubble burst. In 2007, I gave up on real estate and went to work for Symitar, a credit union software developer, as a process analyst. In February, 2008, I moved to Symitar's Education department as an Instructional Analyst. In my spare time, I spent a lot of time with my son in Scouting, or with my girlfriend, a Korean immigrant, exploring the Korean community in San Diego and LA. 
Colleen Jackson: My work career began in 1973 in front of the camera as a singer/dancer for the Dean Martin Show. In 1978 I married and moved behind the camera, learning the visual media trade from the ground up first in school, and eventually in the production department of the local FOX affiliate in Sacramento. But the real influence of media was not in producing the end product… it was in the script. So with the goal to influence in mind I pursued a writing career spanning two decades in everything from commercial to educational content. Career highlights include co-production and writing assignments with Discovery Education (Real People-Real Math), script writing for National Geographic’ text book support program (Introduction to Matter) and most recently the American Indian Series for 100% Educational Videos.
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Cathy Arreguin
Martha Tessmer: This is the first step in my journey to redesign my life. Life up to this point has been focused on my family and on developing a career as an Instructional Designer/Education Consultant. During these past years, I have taught for Vocational Colleges (5 years), State Center Community College District (15 years) and most recently, Childrens Hospital Central California (10 years). I have always taught or developed technology training for adults. In addition, when my children were in K-8, I volunteered at their school as the computer teacher for their grade levels which proved to be a priceless experience. When I started teaching, the mediums being used were 8 inch or 5.25 inch floppy disks, then we were thrilled when the 3.5 inch disk hit the scene. You can imagine our enthusiasm once hard disk drives arrived....and now look what we have to work with. It has been an adventure up to this point seeing technology evolve and utilizing it to teach others. With this next step, I hope to explore and experience Distance Education along with the associated tools. It is going to be a time for me to engulf myself in technologies and approaches that were not required in my day-to-day instructional design efforts so therefore, not included. My eyes are open and my heart is willing! The catalyst that has me needing to redesign my life in order to find a new focus and purpose is the unexpected death of my teenage son just 18 months ago. Since that time, my interest and life projects are grief related. So I have just left an excellent job of 10 years in order to concentrate on getting a Masters degree. During this time I will be working with the Hinds Hospice Grief and Loss Center for all of my project needs. My hope is that after this short education sabbatical, I can leave behind a grief education library that will enhance their outreach to others who have also lost loved ones in their lives. I am not concerned as much about the destination once I receive the degree, but rather the journey while getting there. 
Name: Nathan 
Meghan Woodward
My name is Melissa Richardson. I have been an elementary Educational Technologist with DoDDS-Europe for four years. It has been very different being a specialist, as opposed to a classroom teacher for seven years, I love my position though. I have met some great people and have learned a variety of technology tools. The classes I have taken through SDSU have provided me with some useful ideas and projects. The Master’s Degree finish line is near. I look forward to learning with you all! :) 
Hello! I have no idea where to begin. This is my 4th class in the Edtech program now, and I am trying to finish up my certification in Educational Technology. About a year and a half ago I discovered the whole training and instructional design field, and I think it is a great field to be in. In my spare time, which seems to be very little, I enjoy being outdoors, running, going to and trying new restaurants, and traveling. I have a little yorkie named Keoni who goes just about everywhere with me. I am a native San Diegan, born and raised, and although I love it here, I would not mind living somewhere else for a while, although I actually hate being cold, so this may limit the places I can move to! I am looking forward to this class and the summer! 
Our Teaching Assistant---Yong Chen: San Diego State University 
Hi! Namaste! I’m Nerissa D’Souza. I live in the bustling city of Mumbai, India. 
My name is Suzanne