Welcome to the Technology Test Kitchen

Phylise Banner, Test Kitchen Chair, Master Chef

Phylise Banner is a learning experience designer with over 25 years of vision, action, and leadership experience in transformational teaching and learning approaches within academia and industry. A pioneer in online learning, she regularly seeks out and embraces opportunities to experiment with emerging pedagogies and technologies in order to best serve learners, and to create vibrant and engaged communities of practice.

She is an Adobe Education Leader, STC Fellow, performance storyteller, avid angler, aviation enthusiast, and currently training to be a private pilot. She is also the proud owner of a 1967 Amphicar.

George Bradford, Test Kitchen Co-Chair, Master Chef

George R. Bradford, PhD, has worked in the intersection of people, technology, teaching, and learning beginning in the late 1970’s from the first ever micro-computer labs teaching mathematics and programming to his current position of director, instructional design and development at Keck Graduate Institute, part of the Claremont Colleges Consortium in Southern California. In between, George has taught computer English to the Swedish Airforce, English to a variety of adult schools in Sweden, served as a technical marketing specialist to Swedish Telecom in European and international projects, coordinated technical projects with Apple Computer Sweden, co-programmed a multimedia authoring tool for language teachers at San Diego State University, co-designed an award winning multimedia training system for first responders of an MCI, consulted with many Fortune 100-500 businesses in the USA (and a couple Fortune 10s) regarding face-to-face / train-the-trainer, e-learning, and online performance support systems, run a computer services business, worked as an instructional designer and faculty developer at the University of Central Florida, University of South Australia, University of West Georgia, and Keck Graduate Institute, and served as a faculty member, dissertation committees member, and on many institutional technology committees. He has published some, but lately he is looking for new inspiration to collaborate and innovate in science education.

Donna Andress, Master Chef

Donna Andress has been teaching and learning in the Saratoga Springs City School District for 33 years. Passionate about technology integration and professional development, she became a member of the IT team as the district’s first educational technology specialist after spending 16 years in the classroom. As part of the team, Donna works with teachers helping to integrate technology into the classroom, designs professional development courses, writes documentation, produces training videos, and helps manage some of the many systems required to keep the district running like a well-oiled machine. In addition to her role as education technology specialist, Donna is a certified Microsoft Innovative Educator (MIE) and a Microsoft Innovative Educator Master Trainer.  She has also been the Director of district’s Continuing Education program, focusing on learning opportunities for residents of Saratoga Springs and surrounding communities.

Paul Bills, Master Chef

Paul Bills is the lead writer at Mobile Coach, the world’s first enterprise training chatbot company. He has designed and developed over 100 training reinforcement chatbots, reaching over 350,000 users across a wide range of industries. With a Masters of Entertainment Arts and Engineering from the University of Utah and a BA in English from Brigham Young University, Paul combines game design and creative writing to develop unique learning experiences.

Beth DuPont, Master Chef

Beth DuPont is the Director of Learning Experience Design & Digital Scholarship Support (LEDS) at Skidmore College in the beautiful Adirondack Region of Saratoga Springs, New York. While earning her Master of Arts in Instructional Design and Technology from The Ohio State University, Beth worked as a software editor and trainer for an educational textbook publishing company. For nearly 20 years now, she has been developing her Higher Ed IT leadership skills while managing an exceptional team of learning experience designers as together they promote and support transformative experiences for faculty, staff and students at a small liberal arts institution.

Beth is new to the test kitchen and looking forward to being a part of this elite team! Her experience rowing in extreme weather conditions, tracking down rogue dogs and providing them with the “bath of shame”, and her reputation as “one of the most-polite hockey players on the ice”, have all prepared her for the challenge and surprise of the OLC Technology Test Kitchen!

Robert Jolly, Master Chef

Robert Jolly is Technology Director at Knowbility, a non-profit focused on ensuring digital accessibility and equal access to technology for people with disabilities. Robert has 20 years’ experience in the web design and development industry working with and leading projects for The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Georgetown University, Zappos, Nintendo, Time Inc., ESPN, American Airlines, JetBlue, and many others.

Robert is a member of the W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG), where he promotes web accessibility to a global audience of professionals by developing educational content in the form of tutorials, examples, and other documentation. Additionally, he evangelizes web accessibility through events and conferences for designers, developers, and project managers.

Ann Musgrove, TTK Committee Member and Master Chef

Ann is an Assistant Professor of Instructional Technology in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Florida Atlantic University. She teaches undergraduate and graduate course online and F2F. She embraces the philosophy of pedagogy before technology. She has a Certification in Online Learning from the Online Learning Consortium and develops and facilitates workshops including Multimodal Design, Exploring Interactive Videos Tools, New to Online – Introduction to Online Tools, and Converting your Course Content. Dr. Ann Musgrove enjoys working with faculty and administrative teams to create, administer and deliver meaningful and flexible learning environments. She develops and creates curriculum for faculty transitioning to online and blended courses. Ann has developed 2 courses that have been nationally recognized by Quality Matters (QM). She has extensive QM experience serving as an Institution Representative, Active Peer Reviewer in Higher Education, K-12, and Continuing Education, and is an online facilitator for the QM foundation course “Applying the Quality Matters Rubric”. annmusgrove.com

Jillian Powers, Master Chef

Dr. Jillian Powers is an Assistant Professor at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) in the College of Education in the department of Teaching and Learning. Dr. Powers teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in instructional technology and design for educators and business trainers. Her research focuses on teachers’ adoption and integration of technology into classroom practices and ways in which technology shapes the teaching and learning process. Dr. Powers earned her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with a specialization in Instructional Technology from FAU in May 2014. She has previously worked as an Instructional Designer at the Institute of Excellence in Early Care and Education at Palm Beach State College and as a computer teacher in various PreK-8 schools. In these roles, she has designed and facilitated numerous technology trainings for in-service educators.

Maddie Shellgren, Master Chef

Madeline (Maddie) Shellgren is the one with the batman and dinosaur tattoos. Starting this year as a PhD student in Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures, Maddie spent the last six years at Michigan State as a PhD student in Linguistics. She devotes a lot of time to thinking about professional identities within higher education, inclusion, equity, and accessibility, language and identity, pedagogy, educational technology, and a bunch of other things. That said, Maddie also spends a lot of time trying to figure out which local stores sell the best donuts (extensive research and data collection still underway) and which parks provide the best dog-walking experiences. When not teaching, being a grad student, or working for either the College of Arts and Letters, the Graduate School, or the Writing Center, you can find her coaching with the MSU Varsity Rowing team, working as a Simulated Patient for the College of Human Medicine, or eating cannolis at Roma Bakery.

Shereene Twum-Barimah, Master Chef

Shereene Twum-Barimah is an Educational Technology Specialist in the Office of Information Technology at St. George’s University (SGU) on the beautiful Caribbean island of Grenada.

She has over 10 years of experience in the area of training and supporting faculty and staff in their use of instructional technologies and serves as lead Functional Course Management System Administrator.

Shereene is very passionate about the use of technology in teaching and learning. This led her to co-create the Teaching with Technology series of faculty development workshops in 2012 to introduce mobile learning to SGU, which has since evolved and expanded each year, to various technologies and teaching strategies. Most recently, she chaired SGU’s first ever Tech Day in March 2017 which exposed faculty to innovative use of emerging technologies such as virtual, augmented and mixed reality, 3D technologies etc., in education.

Shereene is an aspiring mindfulness practitioner, avid doodler and sketch note-taker and finds ultimate joy in her adorable and lively daughter.