TIP 2017 Presenters

Using Google In Your Classes: Engaging Students and Best Practices to Impact Student Success

Alice Keeler
Alice is a lecturer at Fresno State in the Curriculum and Instruction department. She taught high school math for 14 years and now teaches CI149. Alice is a Google Certified Teacher. She co-authored "50 Things You Can Do With Google Classroom" and "50 Things To Go Further With Google Classroom." She is a Microsoft Innovative Educator and a New Media Consortium Ambassador. Alice has served on the Horizon Report advisory committee since 2014. She has lead project teams with Google on projects such as YouTube for Teachers and Google Play for Education. Alice is the founder of coffeeEDU (coffeeEDU.org) Alice is a member of the Google G Suite educator team. She is also a proud mom of 5.

Frederik Vermote
I am currently employed at California State University, Fresno, where I have begun my fourth year as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Global and Asian history. I previously taught courses in comparative World Religions at Quest University (British Columbia, Canada) as a visiting tutor in 2012. In 2013 I was a postdoctoral research fellow at the National University of Singapore for the project “Empire in Asia: A New Global History”. I have written three book chapters and three articles on my research in Asian and Global history including one article in The World History Connected journal for a forum examining new methods of teaching World History, using student-centered interactive games in undergraduate world history surveys where the majority of students is preparing for a teaching credential. I have since presented my findings together with high-school world history teachers and I have further developed my world history surveys experimenting with new technology such as google classroom (for collaborative writing exercises) and flipped classroom-based formats. My book manuscript Moving Money and Missionaries in a Global World: The Jesuit Financial Networks between Europe and Asia is under contract with Brill, to be published in the new “Series in Jesuit Studies.”

My research and teaching is the product of post-secondary education on four continents and has required archival work in archives across Europe, Asia, and North America, drawing upon both European (Flemish, French, English, Spanish, Latin, Italian, and Portuguese) and classical Chinese sources. Throughout my research I examine the way European religious networks clung to European state and merchant networks in order to make global connections that successfully bridged the edges of empires, focusing on how these migrants survived transoceanic voyages, and finally succeeded in translating ideas across vastly different cultures. In an effort to more adequately ‘measure’ the extent of globalization, students have helped me build a database containing details of over 2,000 voyages from Europe to Asia during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. However, keeping in mind that it is people who inhabit these large-scale databases presenting global historical models, I never forget that both researchers and students of history like myself are lured into this topic because of the human dimension and the way waves of immigrants expressed their hopes, frustrations, and fears to bring their global odysseys to a successful end.

Matt Doyle
Matthew Doyle is a Public Services Librarian and liaison to the Kremen School of Education & Human Development and Graduate Studies Programs at Fresno State. Matthew is a graduate of Rutgers University School of Communication and Information with a background in both academic libraries and in K-12 public schools.  His research interests are centered around the disconnect between K-12 and post secondary institutions, faculty and student perceptions of information literacy skills, school libraries and technology in the classroom. Matthew is a Google Certified Educator and self-professed Google-addict. 

Trang Phan
Trang Phan is an assistant professor at the department of Curriculum and Instruction, Kremen School of Education and Human Development (KSOEHD). Trang graduated with a Ph.D. in Learning, Design and Technology from the University of Houston in August 2016. Her research interests that originated from her graduate work include 1) pedagogical strategies used in Massive Open Online Courses to address diverse learning needs of global learners, 2) how MOOCs pedagogically impact campus-based instruction, and 3) use of mind map in flipped classrooms. Recently Trang is interested in looking into how students' technological competencies factor into their collaboration and performance in media group assignments. Trang used Google Sites and other Google apps in her CI 100 - a technological prerequisite course for pre-service teachers. From May 2017, Trang will be in charge of directing the Instructional Technology and Resource Center (INTERESC) that provides technological support for faculty and students at KSOEHD.

Xiaoming Yang
Dr. Yang is a senior analyst specializing in geographic information systems (GIS), natural resource analysis, and remote sensing.  He has more than 25 years of experience in technical and managerial positions in the GIS centers of different private and public universities.

For the last five years, Dr. Yang has worked as a Senior GIS Analyst at Geospatial Information Center (https://library.fresnostate.edu/service/geospatial-information) in the Henry Madden Library at Fresno State.  He provides primary support in geospatial technologies across the campus.  He offers crucial GIS and geospatial database support to several researches and application projects across different disciplines on the campus.  Dr. Yang also served as an instructor in the Craig School of Business, teaching the Introduction to GIS class.

Dr. Yang is the principal designer behind Map and Aerial Locator Tool (MALT).  The tool offers capabilities for anyone in anywhere to search for digitized historical aerial photographs and maps.  He developed a workflow for student assistants on digitizing aerial footprints, a QA/QC procedure to ensure the data quality, and a web application for users to discover maps and aerials. 

Since joining the Interdisciplinary Spatial Information System (ISIS) Center at Fresno State in 2001, Dr. Yang has been involved in more than 100 projects that apply GIS, remote sensing, and web server technologies to a range of disciplines, including facility CAD data to GIS geodatabase conversion, web-enabled room and building search interface development, regional groundwater modeling, distressed real estate analysis, crop field mapping, crime mapping, etc.  The work of the ISIS Center was a series of contracted projects in association with federal, state, and local government agencies, non-profit organizations, and businesses.  He also has helped train several hundred people in the use of GIS.

Jason Whiting
Dr. Jason Whiting is a faculty member at California State University, Fresno in the Department of Recreation Administration. Jason completed a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia and also attended Western Illinois University, Western State College of Colorado, and BYU-Idaho. Jason’s research examines multiple aspects of public land management and outdoor recreation including issues pertaining to racial and ethnic minority populations.

Jason has worked with the Center of Faculty Excellence (previously TILT) and taught online classes at Fresno State for the past four years. These courses include: International Tourism, Leisure and Human Behavior, and Introductory to Recreation, Parks, and Tourism. Jason enjoys spending time with his wife and four children. Jason is also an avid outdoorsman and enjoys traveling, participating in whitewater kayaking, skiing, mountaineering, and carpentry.