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I am a Canadian citizen currently living in Ann Arbor, Michigan and have been employed by the University of Michigan since 2003 as a faculty consultant, working in areas as varied as scientific visualization, social networking and online collaboration. Check out my Portfolio for links to many different projects.
In 2008, I began in LSA Instructional Support Services, a unit supporting over 70 University Departments and 10,000 students. Day-to-day responsibilities include:
> advising on technology- and pedagogy-oriented grant proposals and projects
> training students and faculty in a range of collaborative, organizational and educational software
> consulting on copyright issues, and social networking software and its application in the classroom
> generating graphical content and creating interactive applications in Adobe Flash
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More details about me.
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My first position at the University was with the University of Michigan 3D Lab, collecting, creating and editing 3D data for a wide variety of applications, including virtual reality and stereoscopic projection. Over the years, my experience in the 3D Lab evolved from constructing, texture mapping and animating 3D models to gathering and visualizing scientific data, including laser scanned surface data, and motion capture data. |
A collection of icons I created for our Crestron touchscreen displays, which manage projectors, computer input and other visual resources. |
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Stanford-developed Coursera is the world's leading MOOC (Massively Open Online Course) software, and is currently in use at dozens of accredited universities both in North America and abroad.
Adoptation of MOOCs at the University of Michigan is still in its infancy and it is at this point impossible to anticipate how widely they will be embraced (if at all).
I am interested not only in the new pedagogical opportunities afforded by Coursera, but also in the chance to flex my digital illustration and animation skills to see how new elements can improve the user experience.
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In 2012, the University of Michigan transitioned its email and calendar software to Google. In conjunction, several of the Google suite of tools were made available to faculty and students in the University's proprietary Google domain.
My unit organized a Google Roadshow which I organized and participated in presenting to academic departments and administrative units across campus to introduce these tools and start a discussion on their usefulness in education.
Our presentation itself and several other resources related to the Google Suite of tools are freely available online.
Even if your academic institution doesn't explicity endorse Google, these applications are freely available and applicable to many different pedagogical challenges.
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I authored this Flash application to allow Statistics students to self-test on their own choice of up to ten different statistical models. The application calls external .txt files which can easily be modified to reflect content from any subject.
Name That Scenario incorporates error prompts if .txt data is insufficient or in the wrong format, and also offers hints for incorrect answers.
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Encourage your 4-7 year-old to manoeuvre Mr. J. Owls around the map in pursuit of a ladybug, girl, skeleton and spider.On tagging one of these enchanting sprites, she will be prompted with an image to practice spelling out familiar words on the QWERTY keyboard.
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Scenes from an unfinished Flash animation short (filed under Animation).
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Recently I've been expanding my knowledge of ArcGIS and GoogleEarth to support Warren Whatley's efforts to publish an interactive map to visualize the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database.
The goal is to allow students to interactively view thousands of pieces of data, ranging from text and statistics to pdfs, images and websites.
As of Winter Term 2009, the Map Project has gone live in Professor Whatley's 400-level Economics Class, The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, and is an integral part of the curriculum. Currently one graduate and two undergraduate students work part time on maintaining and augmenting the map.
Long term goals include class-wide student contributions to the map and its associated databases.
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Vector Poem is my latest Flash creation, an interactive application which allows students and poetry enthusiasts to visually manipulate and rearrange a group of three short poems in real time.
My work on Vector Poem has already generated demands for an interactive advertising application using some of the same principles.
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To the right is an example of my training and experience with the Vicon Motion Capture system: I've mapped motion capture data from a session I set up, captured and edited to a simple robot character, at right.
The gif is a small clip extracted from the full session.
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New Flash game added: ISS Smackdown!, with sound. This is a short, interactive problem resolution training game I created for Instructional Support Services at the University. In addition to being a useful tool for newcomers and veterans alike, it highlights the many educational possibilities of Flash ActionScript.
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To the right is the 3D mascot, Rachel the Wonderful Rocket.
Rachel stars in a science program about the solar system which has been reinvented for the new dome projection system at the UM Exhibit Museum's Planetarium.
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This prototype football player was created in response to renewed interest in the lab's football trainer software. The new cluster system running the CAVE has made higher polygon counts and more sophisticated lighting and rendering possible.
This section includes a short line-of-scrimmage animation.
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Fishbowl is a 3D animated clip of a fish swimming around his underwater library.
This animation was generated to round out the lab's GeoWall content to demonstrate an actual fixed-camera film, as opposed to static 3D models. |
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This FlashMX presentation provides a step-by-step explanation of the mid-ocean gyre phenomenon. Each stage features a full resolution 3D animation illustrating key processes, as well as optional text explanations.
An interactive glossary offers definitions for difficult terminology.
Download for PC or Mac available.
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This point and click Flash adventure game for young kids involves a search for an anthropomorphic fish in a spooky haunted house.
The game environment consists of several dozen pre-rendered 3D environments and some basic vector-based animation. |
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