I am D’Arcy Norman, Associate Director, Learning Technologies & Design, in the Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning at the University of Calgary. My portfolio includes the Learning Technologies Group and the Learning & Instructional Design Group, as well as our graduate student Learning Technology Coaches. I am fortunate to work with an absolutely amazing team, and am constantly inspired and impressed by the work they do. Which means that I have the best job on campus.
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My PhD research was conducted in the transdisciplinary Computational Media Design program at the University of Calgary, where I explored the connections between the built environment (spaces and technologies), performance (what people do, the actions they perform), and their effects on teaching and learning.
From the Official Staff Bio™:
D’Arcy leads the Learning Technologies & Design Team in finding and developing technology platforms that enhance student learning, and in collaborating with instructors and faculty leadership to adopt and support new learning technologies.
He has spent the bulk of his career at the University of Calgary. He started as a web and multimedia developer, building the first online courses in the Faculty of Nursing, before moving into the role of education technology consultant at the Teaching and Learning Centre, and then IT partner. He holds bachelor’s degrees in zoology and education, and completed his master’s in educational technology in 2013.
D’Arcy is a strong supporter of open education, which entails using technology to eliminate barriers and broaden access to learning. He is interested in how technologies can be opened up to people to enable them to freely publish, collaborate and share knowledge.
My work supports the meaningful integration of learning technologies to support student learning, through development of new tools, incorporation of existing tools, and through collaboration and support of instructors.
I’m interested in how technologies can be used to empower and connect individuals and to form rich collaboration and foster active communities of learning. My MSc thesis explored how students interacted with each other in a traditional institutional learning management system in comparison to individually-owned weblogs (TL;DR: students basically did what teacher told them to do, regardless of what software they used. Go figure.)
My PhD dissertation explored ways to integrate HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) and SoTL (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning) by adapting concepts and research methods from the design and study of video games. More information about my dissertation is available online. (TL;DR: concepts from the design and study of video games map REALLY nicely onto SoTL research approaches, and connect with how we describe and analyze teaching and learning, course design, and the experiences of students and instructors.)