Staff

Karen French is the coordinator for the IDEA Studio.She holds a Ph. D. in Curriculum and Instruction with a specialization in Instructional Technology as well as a Master's degree in Anthropology. She is certified to teach both Spanish and Latin and taught high school Latin for seven years. Prior to joining the IDEA Studio staff, she worked as a facilitator in the WINGS program, an online mentoring program for new teachers sponsored by the University of Texas at Austin. Karen's professional interests include training K-12 and university faculty to integrate technology into classroom instruction. Her dissertation research focuses on the role of reflection in electronic discourse and the online mentoring of novice teachers.

Yangjoo Park is a Graduate Research Assistant in the IDEA Studio. He is working on his Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction, specializing in Instructional Technology. Yangjoo also holds a Master's degree in Instructional Technology. Before joining the IDEA Studio, he developed several web sites for graduate and undergraduate students using HTML, CFML, PHP, and other technologies. His work for the IDEA Studio includes web development, web-based database development, and multimedia development, as well as QuickTime Virtual Reality panoramas and objects. Yangjoo's research interest is related to the patterns of interaction among group members in on-line collaborative learning environments.

Yoo-Jin Kim is a Student Technician at the IDEA Studio, where her work focuses on graphics, web design, and web and database programming. She is an undergraduate Studio Art major at the University of Texas at Austin.

Royce Kimmons is a Graduate Research Assistant in the IDEA Studio and a Doctoral student in Curriculum and Instruction, specializing in Instructional Technology. Royce currently holds a Master's degree in Teaching, emphasizing Language Arts instruction, and before joining the IDEA Studio, he served as a founding teacher for a new charter school, where he taught digital media and computer literacy, designed websites and multimedia, and developed and maintained the technology-rich school's computing infrastructure.  Royce's research interests include the potential for free and open source software in spear-heading school change and educational gaming.

Michelle Fulks Read is a Graduate Research Assistant in the IDEA Studio and a Doctoral student in Curriculum and Instruction, specializing in Instructional Technology.  Michelle's professional experience includes 15 years as a teacher, Technology Integration Specialist, school web developer, and Intel Master Teacher.  She holds two master's degrees, both obtained through the UT Telecampus system, in Educational Technology and Literacy Studies.  Michelle's research interests include the successful and practical integration of technology in the average classroom and its impact on student performance and overall literacy development.  

Chung-Kai Huang is a Graduate Research Assistant in the IDEA Studio and a Doctoral student in Curriculum and Instruction, specializing in Instructional Technology. He has a Master's degree in Language Education and a Bachelor of Arts in Finance.  Prior to joining the IDEA Studio, he worked as a language lecturer and accounting teacher in Taiwan.  Chung-Kai's professional interests include competency-based blended learning and IT leadership in both corporate and school settings.

Shyamala Lakshminarasimhan is a Graduate Research Assistant in the IDEA Studio.  She is currently pursuing her Master's degree in Computer Science.  Her work in the IDEA studio focuses on enhancing and maintaining the ePortfolio application.  Before joining the University, she worked for three years as a software engineer in India.

Jeongwon Woo is a Graduate Research Assistant in the IDEA Studio, and a Doctoral student in Curriculum and Instruction, specializing in Instructional Technology.  She holds a Master's degree in Instructional Technology.  Before joining the IDEA Studio staff, she participated in many projects as a Research Assistant and Researcher in Korea.  She was a RA for Brain Korea 21 Academic Leadership Institute and the Educational Research Institute at Seoul National University. Major projects consisted of assessing online content, developing blended learning model and web supporting system, needs analysis, usability testing and developing training programs.  Jeongwon's professional interests include computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) as well as knowledge building in CSCL. 

Becky Carpenter is a Web Applications specialist. Her work in the IDEA studio relates to graphics design, and managing blogs and wikis for the faculty at the College of Education.  She enjoys webdesign, web programming, and researching web applications.  She is knowledgeable in PHP, MySQL, HTML, Flash, and other web technologies. She will graduate with a BS in Computer Science in May, 2009.

Aarthi Ganesan is the programmer in charge of implementing the OpenWebsite and Video-Case based learning projects in the IDEA Studio. She is studying in the UTCS Master's program. Prior to beginning her work at the IDEA Studio, she completed a summer internship at Cisco Systems, California in the Transport Layer Protocol team, and developed a socket-performance test tool. She also has worked as a Research/Teaching Assistant in the Department of Computer Sciences. Additionally, she worked with Verizon in their Internet Service Provider Provisioning team, after completing her undergraduate degree at Anna University Chennai, India. She is a IBM certified DB2 and Web developer.