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 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 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 works as educational developer at the Division for Higher Education Development (AHU) at Lund University, Sweden. Apart from this, she is 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.

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.

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.

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.

Lotta Fröjdfeldt is an academic developer at Mälardalen University (MDU), Eskilstuna, Sweden. She focuses on the pedagogical aspects of ICT in Higher Education. Lotta is experienced both as a system developer, 15 years, and as teacher, 7 years, and has worked with academic development since 2015. She is interested in, and is now studying for a masters degree in online teaching and learning in higher education. Lotta was a participant in ONL172, and has since been co-facilitator and 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.

Mirko Ahonen is a Senior lecturer in Online Media at Arcada University of Applied Sciences in Helsinki. He teaches media production, audio/video/animation, multi-camera production, streaming, programming, and game design. On the side he works with live television as a Technical operations manager. He has always been interested in pedagogy and e-learning, and he wrote his Master’s thesis about creating engaging online courses. In his free time, he is either at the gym, listening to audiobooks, or learning something new.

Diane Pilkinton-Pihko is a linguist, who is teaching English to non-native speakers at Aalto University in Finland. She did her graduate work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and her post-graduate studies at the University of Helsinki (Finland). Her research interests include English as a lingua franca, recognition or prior learning, and content and language integrated learning. Her main work involves teaching oral and written communication to students in the fields of engineering or industrial arts. In recent years, developing and teaching courses as blended or online have become a central focus. She designed and taught her first fully online course in 2011, and since then has continued to develop herself and her courses for e-learning.

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 was a Co-facilitator in the ONL212 course.

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.

Katarzyna Radke is an internationalization coordinator and a senior lecturer of English at the Foreign Language Teaching Center of Adam Mickiewicz University (AMU), Poznań, Poland. She teaches general English and English for Specific Purposes with the focus on e-learning techniques and the use of new technologies in language learning. One of her main interests lies in the use of online tools for intercultural collaboration and virtual exchange in higher education. Together with her international partners she has launched 6 COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) projects for students from Poland, Finland, Sweden, Spain, Argentina and the Netherlands. Katarzyna was an open learner in ONL211, and is now back in the role of a co-facilitator in the ONL221 iteration.

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.

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?

Sandeep Patil received his PhD degree in computer science engineering from Luleå University of Technology, Luleå, Sweden. He is currently working as an assistant professor at the Dependable Communication and Computation Systems Group, Luleå University of Technology. He is currently looking how open networked learning eco-system can be used in his teaching to improve student participation, grades, and better time management. In a trial course this year, he is using a CC-NC-SA licensed course material.

Leena Katto works as a Senior Adviser at Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK) in the School of Pedagogical Innovations and Culture. Her main focus is on developing the Teaching and Learning Centre (TLC) of Tampere Universities. She also works on educational technology as a digimentor of teacher education and in several pedagogical projects. She has a strong interest in learning design and learning analytics and how to implement them in HE teaching.

Charlotta Edlund is a lecturer at the School of Business, Society & Engineering, Mälardalen University, Sweden since 20 years. Her main lecturing and research areas are international marketing, international business, multinational enterprises, consumer behaviour and cross-cultural management. During her time at the University she has also worked seven years as Head of Internationalization, a position that has given her lots of skills and valuable experience in dealing with different types of cultures. Within this frame she also manages two international networks: (1) PRIME Networking with 17 partner institutions from 16 different countries and (2) NordBiz, a Nordplus network with eight partners from the five Nordic and three Baltic countries. She is also responsible for the Bachelor’s Programme International Business Management. Besides this she also coordinate all thesis courses in business administration. In all roles, she always strives for development: personal, pedagogical, didactic or organizational…while being on a “Life Long Learning Journey”

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.

Agneta Hedenström works as an educational developer at Luleå university of technology, Sweden. Her fields of interests are learning environments, digitalization in and of education, especially how to use technology for innovative pedagogy to increase learning. Besides her work at the university Agneta is running a Makerspace for the citizens in Luleå. She wants everyone in all ages to have a chance to learn how to create with modern technology. She has also been part of the European code week team to promote coding for all young Europeans.

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 facilitator in the ONL221 iteration.

Anna Granberg I am a Teaching Developer since four years at Finland’s only Swedish-speaking university, Åbo Akademi. We are a broad university that offers everything from Mathematics to Development Psychology. In my teaching the student and his/her learning has always been in focus. I heard an inspiring talk in the beginning of my career as a teacher, where the speaker said “the motor should not go in me, I know my homework already”. This has become a mantra for me, the students should work, not me. I also think that emotions are important in learning, and having fun is much more appealing the feeling frustrated. So in a nutshell, hard student work and having fun together!

Verily Tan is an academic developer with the Centre for Development of Teaching and Learning in the National University of Singapore. Verily has a strong background in Instructional Systems Technology and the Learning Sciences. These inform her work on designing self-paced blended learning courses, working with faculty on technology-enhanced courses, and supporting students and their supervisors in undergraduate teaching opportunities. Having participated in ONL212, Verily is excited to be a co-facilitator in this iteration and expects to gain new perspectives and friendships with members in her group. Increased social learning is one of her goals for ONL221.

Silvana Perez Läherinta I work in Aalto University as digital pedagogy specialist and I’m interested in all kinds of innovative learning platforms and methodologies, such as VR/AR. I support teachers implement their online, blended or hybrid courses and advise on pedagogical aspects of the implementations and develop distance learning. My educational background is in Language technology, Social psychology and Adult pedagogy. I’m especially interested in the psychological aspects of learning, memory and interaction.

Erik Månsson 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.

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 ONL221.

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.

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.

Simoné Jansen I am an artist at heart and in my soul and a Media and Graphic Design lecturer by trade at Educor in South Africa. I have been involved in both face-to-face and online teaching for the past 4 years. I love guiding young artists through their creative end cognitive development and watching their confidence grow in themselves. After being a participant in the 212 iteration, I am excited to further my growth along with others and work together to evolve our educational skills, perceptions and approaches.

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.

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 again in ONL221. She is currently undergoing training to become a Digital Education Producer.

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 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 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 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.

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 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.

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.

Bahareh Aghajafari Wolde Research engineer at IDT MDU! I have done my bachelor’s in computer engineering and master’s in computer science and some little teaching experience. I am a person who has been always seeking solutions for everything and thinking about new opportunities and possibilities. It is long time that I am thinking we can make great change in world by using our now a days facility. One great possibility is in education to extend it worldwide and make it possible for all human beings to develop their short period of life time. I believe so many of the problems in the world can be solved by extending education between everyone in each corner of this world. Give them possibilities to find their real potential in life.
Also, I believe always in new ways, because our problems are dynamic as their solution must be dynamic too! I understand the human nature to feel safe by not changing. But our whole world is not stable from small molecules to the universe! We cannot solve dynamic problems with stabil solution! We cannot think about education as we thought one year ago! I have been introduced to ONL and happy that it has been initializing this idea in education. I wish that we together help to build worldwide education for all human beings.