Alastair Creelman
Alastair Creelman
Course organiser
 

Alastair Creelman is an e-learning specialist at the Linnaeus University library in Kalmar. He is particularly interested in the opportunities that technology offers to open up education to all. He monitors developments and trends in educational technology and disseminates his findings through his blogs, Twitter and other social media as well as in published articles and conference contributions. He has taught in most areas of education (school, adult education, corporate training and university) and is today active in several national and international networks and organisations as well as Nordic and EU projects.

Jörg Pareigis
Course organiser
 

Jörg Pareigis is Head of the Centre for Teaching and Learning at Karlstad University, where he is also Assistant Professor in Business Administration and researcher at CTF, Service Research Center. In addition to his role as program manager of the International Business program, he leads the externally funded WISR16 and WISR17 course development projects. The purpose of the projects is to develop open online graduate courses for professionals in the private and public sector based on strategically important research centres at Karlstad University.

Lars Uhlin
Course organiser
 

Lars Uhlin works as an Educational Developer at Linköping university and Mälardalen university. He has a background in Nursing and has long experience of Health Care Education and Problem-based learning (PBL). For the last 20+ years he has worked with educational development in different settings both on the national and international arena. He is also coordinating a national/nordic network for PBL and is a member of steering group for the swedish network for Information Technology in Higher Education (ITHU). Some of Lars’ main focus areas are professional development and educational design within a framework of problem based-, interprofessional- and online learning.

Lotta Åbjörnsson
Course organiser
 

Lotta Åbjörnsson works as an educational developer at the Division for Higher Education Development (AHU) at Lund University, Sweden. Apart from this, she is acting system manager for Zoom at Lund University – a position that has kept her very busy over recent months. During seven years as part of the organiser group behind the ONL project, she has transformed from tech-adverse to tech-savvy, counting teenage kids saying “we’ll ask mom” one of her main feats. With a background in Physiotherapy and a Diploma in Physiotherapy Education she has worked as a teacher mainly in Physiotherapy programmes employing Problem Based Learning (PBL) as their method of instruction.

Filip Levälahti
Facilitator
 

Filip Levälahti works as an e-learning specialist at Arcada, University of applied sciences in Helsinki, Finland. His job is to support and develop the teachers’ competences in online and blended teaching and to coordinate the pedagogical infrastructure in the campus. Filip also teach a course in digital literacies for all new students at the university. He follows the expression “good online pedagogy begins with good pedagogy, period” (Paul Creasman) and is eager to find out how good pedagogy can be applied with modern technology.

Alan Soong 2020
Alan Soong
Facilitator
 

Alan Soong is Associate Director at the Centre for Development of Teaching & Learning, National University of Singapore. He teaches courses on blended learning, education grant writing and other topics such authentic learning environments and module design. His research focuses on academic development, online teaching & learning in higher education and living-learning communities. Alan served on the executive committee of the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ASCILITE) from 2012 till 2019. He participated in ONL171, and has since been a co-facilitator or facilitator.

Per Sandén
Facilitator
 

Per Sandén is an Associate Professor in Environmental Science and an educational developer at Linköping University. He has more than 20 years of experience as a facilitator of PBL groups on campus and developed and lead the undergraduate program in Environmental Science. He also developed a master program in Environmental Science. The last five years he has mostly worked as an educational developer on higher education pedagogy courses and courses for facilitators in PBL. He has also developed an advanced course for facilitators in PBL.

Patrik Holm
Facilitator
 

Patrik Holm is a Biomedical Laboratory Scientist who mainly teaches Nursing and PE teacher students in anatomy and physiology at Karlstad university in Sweden. He has extensive experience and interest in online teaching and he is more than happy to share and discuss pedagogical approaches for both IRL and online education. He has just recently joined the Centre for Teaching and Learning at his university to help his colleagues develop their reasoning and execution of online teaching.

Lars Harrysson
Facilitator
 

Lars Harrysson I work at Lund University, School of Social Work, as a senior lecturer. My main focus in research is in social policy, elderly care and health care. At the moment I am involved in a project called Proactive cancer care, which involves knowledgeable people from many various branches of academy, practice and patient groups. My teaching, apart from joining the ONL team, focus on online and flipped classroom courses in social work and design sciences. I followed the ONL171 a few years ago and took the chance to co-facilitate in ONL172. Very rewarding, thus to try to support the ONL movement was not a hard decision when asked.

Kelly Maroon
Facilitator
 

Kelly Maroon is an intersectional educator, writer and artist. Currently a Master of Education candidate at the University of Cape Town, Kelly is involved in higher education institutional management and holds the position of Academic Head for creative media and arts school, CityVarsity Cape Town. She has participated in multiple educational research forums, projects and colloquiums and has a vested interest in radical transformation through the utilisation of a critical pedagogic praxis. Informed strongly by the ethos of education as change, Kelly focuses her practice on developing systems of support, development and enhancement that improve learning ecosystems and educator methodologies that are self-reflective and communal reflexive. Her Masters dissertation and research practice strongly considers the relationship between “what we teach” and “how we teach it” in order to better understand the hidden discursive identities that prevail in educational material and learning design. Her pedagogic goals are to assist people in identifying these often-invisible barriers, in order to improve the life-long impact of the learning experiences students and adults engage in.

Maria Sandborgh
Facilitator
 

Maria Sandborgh is an associate professor in Physiotherapy and has been teaching for more than three decades, the last decade in online courses at Mälardalen University. Health related behaviour change is the specific focus in both her teaching and research. Current research projects concern implementation research and the development of a digital tool to prevent falls among older people. She is the programme coordinator for the international Master’s programmes in Health and Welfare. Through digital means she wants to make courses available to both national and international students and to promote collaborative, lifelong learning. She is interested in developing courses that support students’ active learning and problem solving capabilities.

Fredrik Backlund
Facilitator
 

Fredrik Backlund is an associate professor at Luleå University of Technology (LTU), in quality technology and management. During the years, Fredrik have become more engaged in educational development, and is from 2019 a member of the university’s Centre for Educational Development. Fredrik’s main focus areas are problem-based and project-oriented learning, and the integration of program and course development. The spare-time is devoted to the family, and the roles as instructor and developer in different kinds of associations. Overall, both professional and private life is about developing people.

Erik Månsson
Facilitator
 

I am a Swedish citizen who has been an expat in a number of countries since 1993. Currently I am based in Germany, since I came to Frankfurt in 1998 to help build up the European Central Bank. During that period, I was programme manager for the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) introducing BIC and IBAN account numbers and harmonizing European payment systems. Since beginning of 2019 I have a new role at Karlstad University in Sweden teaching leadership and project management remotely.

In autumn 2020 I participated for the first time to the ONL training and found that it was very useful and highly adapted to my new job for online education. ONL helped me to continually improve and develop my own teaching practice with the ability to test and put into practice along with my own personal learning. The PBL group served as a global peer group learning community to exchange experiences, discover new perspectives and challenge each other in a positive way.

Tiina Pylkkönen
Facilitator
 

Tiina Pylkkönen works as a pedagogical specialist at Aalto University, Finland. She has a long history in university administration and pedagogics from 3 Finnish universities. Her job includes supporting teachers especially in the School of Arts, Design and Architecture in developing their courses and curricula, but also being a teacher on pedagogical courses at Aalto University. She is especially interested in ensuring learning for all and enjoys teaching enormously.

Peter Fogel
Facilitator
Peter Fogel is a ICT-pedagogue at University of Skövde, Sweden. He has a background as teacher in music performance and musicology and has been studying the relation between human and technology in a musical creative context. Peter is coordinator of courses in course design and pedagogical digital competence as well as internationalisation in higher education. The interest in internationalisation was energised during several exchange projects with Brazilian universities. Peter participated as student in ONL192.

Miriam Fischer
Co-facilitator
 

Miriam Fischer works in the E-Learning Team of Zurich University of Applied Science Department of Social Work. She has a linguistic and paedagogical background.

Bianca Crozier
Co-facilitator
 

Bianca Crozier works as a Learning and Development Administrator for Educor in South Africa, focusing on the training and development of staff in the new blended learning design. Her main area of expertise is in marketing, and has over 10 years lecturing experience in a face-to-face environment, moving into the online space at the beginning of 2020. Bianca was a participant in ONL202, and is now back in the role of a co-facilitator in the ONL212 iteration.

David Bevington
Co-facilitator
 

At the present time, David Bevington is a Study Support Tutor at the Cornwall College Group. He is based at the Camborne campus. Since 1986, he has worked as a teacher-librarian at colleges and universities in both the UK, in Cornwall and London; and overseas in Papua New Guinea and Namibia. During his career, he has participated in a variety of networks and initiatives that have increased his interest and involvement in developing online learning opportunities for academics and students. David participated as an open learner in ONL192 and is enjoying incorporating the concepts he learned into his design, development and delivery of blended learning courses. He is looking forward to being a co-facilitator again in ONL212.

Lena Örnberg
Co-facilitator
 

Lena Örnberg is a project leader at Lund University, presently in charge of a project on object-based learning, another on teaching in the multicultural classroom and finally one on language support to students. She has a background in Economic history, but she has not been teaching for some years. Participatory meeting methods is one of her passions, and since March last years she has developed her skills in making online meetings more fun and creative. ONL202 was a shove for her to start blogging at Lund University.

John Weston
Co-facilitator
 

John Weston John is a University Teacher of English at the Aalto Language Centre. John has a Ph.D. in the sociolinguistics of academic discourse, and he continues to research the use of English across the arts, humanities, and sciences. John is also qualified as a physics teacher in the UK and is interested in the popularization of science. In addition to coaching technical and artistic students in academic writing at Aalto, John is currently developing new online teaching methods, and researching the use of creative writing and speaking for academic purposes. He produces interview podcasts for the New Books Network and is currently developing a new series about life and work in academia.

Raheel Lakhani
Co-facilitator
 

Raheel Lakhani is an Educational Development and Digital Learning professional. He currently serves as an Assistant Director, Research and Faculty Development at a private university in Pakistan. He was heading the Digital Publishing department at Oxford University Press Pakistan. He has also served as an Educational Technologist at The Aga Khan University, Network of Blended and Digital Learning. He is a recipient of High Honours in Master of Education from The Aga Khan University – Institute for Educational Development. He participated as a digital innovator in an academic scholarship program ‘Social Innovation in a Digital Context’ funded by the Swedish Institute, where he explored the development of a digital storytelling approach for promotion of pluralistic and creative expression. He holds an MA in Technology and Social Change from Lunds Universitet by the same program. His interests include eLearning pedagogy, learner autonomy, pluralism education and visual narratives.

Luis Costa
Co-facilitator
 

Luis Costa works as s specialist in digital pedagogy at Aalto University, in Espoo, Finland. In this capacity, he supports teachers implement their fully online or blended courses and advises them on pedagogical aspects of their implementation. In addtion to this, he is the system manager of Turnitin, a similarity checking system. His background is in electrical engineering, and before his current position he was involved in research and teaching, which he is passionate about. He pioneered the use of PBL in electical engineering education in the then Helsinki University of Technology (now Aalto University) in the late 1990s. He participated in ONL171, which served as an eye-opener showing the possibilities of online collabrative learning, and has now returned as co-faciltator.

Oksana Chernysh
Co-facilitator
 

Oksana Chernysh, a PhD Lecturer, Associate Professor at the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, Zhytomyr Polytechnic State University (Ukraine)

Research interests: Distance Education, E-learning, Lexicography, Computer and Corpus Linguistics, Media linguistics, Genre Studies. 

Motto: Live and Learn😊

Viveca Larsson
Co-facilitator
 

Viveca Larsson is working as a senior lecturer in Public Health at the University of Skövde, teaching online courses in global health and culture, health inequalities, etc. She attended the ONL162 course.

Charina Ong
Co-facilitator
 

Charina Ong is Senior Educational Technologist at CDTL. Charina’s work includes designing and conducting professional development courses/workshops for academics, specifically on Technology-enhanced Learning (TeL); developing e-learning resources for academics and students; providing pedagogical advice on designing or redesigning of blended learning modules; and designing multimedia-related resources to promote the CDTL’s publications and outreach initiatives in various publishing platforms. Charina obtained her Master’s degree in Education at De La Salle University, Philippines and worked as a Senior Lecturer at De La Salle – College of Saint Benilde, School of Design and Arts. Charina’s interests in education include technology-enhanced learning, academic development, and blended learning.

Elisabeth Corell
Co-facilitator
 

Elisabeth Corell is an Affiliated Researcher at the Department of Economic History and International Relations at Stockholm University, Sweden. With a genuine interest in pedagogical issues, she has taught a wide range of courses related to international relations, sustainable development, and the role of expertise in science and policy. She took ONL 211, joined the fan club and is part of the course team in ONL212. She is currently undergoing training to become a Digital Education Producer.

Ann Vestfält
Co-facilitator
 

Ann Vestfält works as a Lecturer at Karlstad University in Sweden, where she manages and teachers courses at the university’s Teaching Programmes. Having taught upper secondary school students for over a decade and being involved in various school development projects as well as international collaboration, she is now keen to pay her knowledge and experiences forward, but is equally open to acquiring new competences, especially within the area of blended learning. Ann took the ONL course in the spring of 2021 and will be a co-facilitator for the first time in the ONL212 course.

Esther Ventura-Medina
Co-facilitator
 

Esther Ventura-Medina works as a lecturer at the Department of Chemical and Process Engineering at the University of Strathclyde, UK. She combines her engineering background, educational training and experience in both in face-to-face and distance learning classes. She is interested in the development of professional skills and does research focusing on investigating teamwork, problem solving skills and team autonomy by looking at the interactions in teams of students. In her own practice she uses PBL as the learning method and is increasingly aware of ‘the digital’ which has taken her to explore further using online tools for collaboration in learning.

Sabine Meise
Co-facilitator
 

Sabine Meise, at the moment living in Berlin (Germany), degrees in Special Needs and Primary School Education. Specialist on Comparative, Inclusive and Teacher Education. Teaching and Researching in diverse Educational Institutions in Japan and Germany (10 years in Japan). Work at the moment for University of Applied Sciences Stendal-Magdeburg in the fields of Childhood Education and Psychology of Rehabilitation.

Suzanne Bancel
Co-facilitator
 

Suzanne Bancel has 18 years’ experience working as an international coordinator. Her most recent position is with the Norwegian Police University College, where she started working in 2018. Prior to that she has worked as an international coordinator in for a faculty of health sciences and a humanities faculty. Before beginning a career in international work, she was a public library director and held various librarian positions in research libraries. She ran a successful virtual mobility program for 59 European police students spring 2021, based on the community of inquiry model.

Alexandra Wirth
Contributor
 

Alexandra Wirth I work at the Careum Foundation, Department Educational Development and Kalaidos University of Applied Sciences Switzerland in Zurich, Department of Health Science. In Careum Educational Development I work as pedagogical researcher in the main areas of further development of curricula for problem-based learning (PBL) as well as teacher training PBL, interprofessionality and health literacy. At Kalaidos University I work as junior researcher in a EU project H2020 about mental health and wellbeing of adolescent young carers. I was an open learner in ONL181 and was completely enthusiastic, and have been engaged in the ONL project since.

Anne Whaits
Contributor
 

Anne Whaits joined the executive team at Educor in May 2018 as Chief Academic Officer (CAO) after having spent most of 2017 with Academic Partnerships – an American Online Programme Manager (OPM) Business in partnership with public universities in South Africa to take a portfolio of their degree programmes 100% online. The group established a second holding company, Uni4, to drive education innovation and online learning in which Anne remains CAO. Having facilitated several iterations of ONL since 2015, Anne’s current action research interests include new learning ecosystems with particular interest in developing online facilitation skills amongst academics and digital literacies amongst students in Africa. UNi4 partners with Education institutions both in South Africa and internationally to power the delivery of online education.

Kiruthika Ragupathi
Contributor
 

Kiruthika Ragupathi is an academic developer with the Centre for Development of Teaching and Learning (CDTL) at the National University of Singapore (NUS). She has a background in Engineering and has worked with academic development since 1997. Her research interests are in analyzing pedagogical issues surrounding the integration of educational technologies into teaching and learning; understanding the learning processes and outcomes for learners engaged in technology-supported tasks; and in tracking and supporting learning in interactive learning environments. Her current research focuses on using student evaluation of teaching to enhance teaching practices and policies; in optimizing instructor interventions in online discussion forums to enhance the student learning experience; and also in studying the impact of gradeless learning on student motivation. Kiruthika took the ONL171 journey, and has since then been a co-facilitator or facilitator.

Hafizah Osman
Contributor
 

Hafizah Osman is a learning designer and she manages the eLearning team at the NUS School of Continuing and Lifelong Education (SCALE). She works closely with faculty members involved in Continuing Education to design and develop blended and online learning modules. She comes from media background, with over two decades of cross-platform, industry experience. She participated in ONL 191, and has been a co-facilitator and facilitator since then.

 

Judit Hahn
Co-facilitator
 

Judit Hahn works as a senior university lecturer of English at the Department of Language and Communication Studies of the University of Jyväskylä in Finland. She teaches courses in linguistics and discourse studies for pre-service language teachers and language experts of English. Judit completed ONL181 as an open learner and enjoyed it so much that she returns to the course as a co-facilitator. She finds international online collaborative learning a highly rewarding and useful experience. Virtual exchange in higher education is in the centre of her interest, both in teaching and in research. She has arranged online collaborative educational projects for her students with universities from Poland, the Czech Republic, Spain, the Netherlands, Japan and Singapore.

Gregor Theilmeier
Contributor
 

Gregor Theilmeier is a trained anesthesiologist, translational researcher and passionate teacher. He has taught at various medical schools since 1995 and now holds a professorship at the University of Oldenburg in Germany, where he participates in the founding of a new medical school. He holds a cross appointment at the University Medical Center in Groningen. He started to teach PBL (offline) courses in the late 1990s at the medical school of the University of Münster. Ever since he has been engaged in and passionate about teaching PBL in medical contexts. He participated as a student in ONL181 and was so excited about online teaching and learning in the ONL format that he immediately returned to ONL191 to join in supporting the next generation of ONL enthusiasts as a co-facilitator, and hasn’t left since.

Hans Bjurgren
Co-facilitator
 

My name is Hans Bjurgren and I work as a lecturer at Mälardalen University. This is my fifth iteration of the ONL course.

Cecilia Hellekant profile picture
Cecilia Hellekant
Co-facilitator
 

Cecilia Hellekant works as a learning designer (ICT pedagogue) at the Centre for Teaching and Learning at Karlstad University. She has a background from the graphical industry and as IT-consultant and has worked more than 15 years as an independent graphical designer. Before joining Karlstad University, Cecilia worked as a high school teacher for 8 years, teaching graphical design, photography and web design.

Gizeh Perez-Tenorio
Contributor
 

Gizeh Perez Tenorio loves research and considers herself a passionate educator. For many years she has mentored students at Linköping University where she also practiced Problem Based Learning as part of the PhD program: “PBL, for me, was hard at the beginning but brought a lifelong reward at the end”. During ONL162 she discovered the power of PBL online and became fascinated by the course design and pedagogy. In the future she would like to understand more about what makes a successful collaboration in virtual teams, to design pedagogical material for digital courses and to learn MOOC design.