My current research focus is in the development of standards to allow tools and content to move freely from one learning management system to another. This work is primarily funded through the IMS Global Learning Consortium (www.imsglobal.org). The IMS Learning Tools Interoperability and IMS Common Cartridge have been a focus of my effort in this area. My work ranges from developing standards documents, developing certification tests, developing materials for education and outreach, and providing expertise to people around the world who are adopting and using the specification.
I am also very interested in the "Informatics" movement and was one of the founding faculty members of the University of Michigan undergraduate Informatics concentration in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA). In this program we focus on giving students the necessary and useful technical skills to augment their chosen career. The Informatics program is dedicated to the notion that while a small fraction of all college graduates will be full-time professional programmers, having a solid understanding of technology is important for nearly every college graduate. I have written a book aimed specifically at teaching programming to non-programmers called "Python for Informatics: Exploring Information".
In addition to research in educational technology, my research interests include: cloud computing, high performance computing, scientific visualization, computer architecture, parallel processing, internet applications and networking. I fundamentally believe that we will always have the need for computers which are many times faster than our personal computers. Regardless of the capability of a single computer, we will continue to "lash" computers together to solve larger and more complicated problems. These large scale computers are often difficult to use compared to personal computers. This field is moving from finding ways ot increase the performance of computational tasks toward finding ways to build scalable web applications like Facebook and Twitter.
I have a broad interest in teaching. I enjoy teaching advanced classes in my area of expertise to advanced students. I also enjoy teaching the very earliest classes where students begin to become aware of the power of computing. I look at teaching in two ways. First, I teach to share my knowledge. Second, I teach to learn. We all must be life-long learners and when teaching is done well it makes the teacher a learner. To this end I would like to teach classes outside my field of expertise as a learning experience. Someday I imagine teaching classes in mathematics, physics, economics, and many other fields in addition to my computer and technology oriented classes.
I believe that research, teaching and outreach are inseparable. Better research leads to more useful instruction and by teaching, we create new researchers and research opportunities. I feel that the best class is one where the student is given more questions than answers while also provided the tools to answer those questions.
I also feel that it is important to share our skills and knowledge outside the higher education community. To this end I regularly give presentations to community groups on a wide variety of topics. I try to use television and radio to interact with an audience beyond the university. I was a regular guest on the program NewsTalk-870 aired on WKAR radio in Lansing Michigan.. I was also a co-host of an award-winning television show Nuthin' but Net produced by MediaOne appearing monthly. Before Nuthin but Net, I was a co-host of another talk show about the Internet titled Internet:TCI. The show won several national and regional awards during its lifetime.