With a Q

About me:

Dave Melone
The Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising
919 South Grand Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90015
Contact

I work in ed-tech and eLearning design at The Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising (FIDM) in Los Angeles. I have been there for six years so far. With a long background in web design and a college degree in psychology, I have been interesting in learning and human-computer interaction for a long time. I love what I do and am anxious to learn more about education, being an educator, learning new ways to use the technology at our disposal. I am excited for this opportunity.

I am a technology geek and love techie toys. My blog/web site is here and it isn’t about anything in particular. I dabble a bit in web and graphic design on the side and enjoy playing in Illustrator and Photoshop. When I am not glued to a computer, I enjoy spending time with my wife, traveling to Hawaii whenever we can, and watching our cat do strange things.

Resumé

Download PDF version (requires Adobe Reader to view)

objective

To grow in knowledge and experience in multimedia development, distance learning pedagogy, and learning management.

education

• Univeristy of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL: Master of Education, May 17, 2009.
• Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA: Bachelor of Science in Psychology, June 10, 1995.
• Academy of Art College, San Francisco, CA & Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA: various courses in Graphic Design, 1998-2000.

experience

07.2001 – 01.2004… Instructional Developer/Desginer, The Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, Los Angeles, CA.
01.2004 – present… eLearning Director

• Piloted, launched, and currently manage the development of an online learning program with an annual enrollment of 3500 students.
• Manage a team of 4 fulltime developers and 20 instructors and created a production schedule which had an average output of 3-4 multimedia courses every three months.
• Manage the creation of over 40 unique courses, including the complete Professional Designation degree in the Merchandise Marketing Program.
• Establish standards of development for educational multimedia content and presentation management.
• Work with education department to establish best practices for online teaching and learning and ensured courses were meeting student learning outcomes in preparation for multiple accreditation agency reviews.
• Work with the Marketing, Education, and Information Technology departments to further the mission of the FIDM eLearning Program and the college.
• Develop student technology support program an online knowledge base and face-to-face faculty and student training.
• Interface with technology vendors and acted as project manager for eLearning Program initiatives.
  • Internal deployment on in-house student testing system (QuestionMark) on a Windows/MSSQL server.
  • Migration of eLearning platform to Sakai Learning Management System.
  • Piloted and tested and deployed new media assets including blogs, podcasts, and wikis for use in the online learning program and college intranet.
  • Developed a faculty publishing platform for developing curriculum content using WordpressMU
• Gave seminars for CampusEAI and FIDM on best practices in deploying enterprise technologies at higher-ed institutions to audiences such as Educause and the California State University system.

09.1999 – 12.2000… WebMaster, Liberty Livewire Audio (formerly Soundelux Entertainment Group, Inc.), Hollywood, CA.

• Administrated online presence for SEG and associated companies, managed website email and ftp servers for staff and client use.
• Developed e-commerce websites for Media Technology Source and The Hollywood Edge, grossing over 5,000 USD in sales weekly.
• Proposed and implemented web marketing strategies and doubled website sessions.
• Utilized Macromedia Flash, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, ASP, Miva Merchant ecommerce software to build out SEG’s online presence.
• Sites:
  • Media Technology Source: http://www.mediatechnologysource.com
  • The Hollywood Edge: http://www.hollywoodedge.com

02.1999 – 09.1999… Webmaster, Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), Oakland, CA.

• Redesigned ABAG web site and optimized site for search engine crawling to maintain approximately 150,000 hits a month.
• Managed and maintained company web site, project web sites, video, audio, and data resources.
• Automated web site updates for staff with dynamic page output via HTML forms.
• Acted as web hosting contact and systems administrator for 32 city and local government agencies, each with virtual domains, user accounts, ftp, video streaming, and web servers.
• Utilized CGI, Perl, Macromedia Dreamweaver on a dedicated Sun server, Netscape Enterprise Server, and WebCT courseware for website maintenance and development
• Sites:
  • abagOnline: http://www.abag.ca.gov

09.1997- 10.1998… Online Projects Manager and Webmaster, Smart Valley, Inc., San Mateo, CA.

• Designed and maintained Smart Valley project web sites.
• Acted as systems administrator, webmaster, troubleshooter, and IS manager for an office of 15 in-house and remote users.
• Consulted with project directors on web deployment for a range of non-profit ventures aimed at increasing the use of technology in education and local government.
• Managed technology transition to Smart Schools Center for Innovation at Foothill Community College under Gay Krause 10.1998 – 02.1999.
• Sites:
  • Smart Valley History: http://www.jointventure.org/programs-initiatives/smartvalley/overview.html
    • SmartSchools PC Day 2
    • Telecommute America Week

07.1995 – 09.1997… Milieu Activities Therapist, Eastfield MingQuong, Campbell, CA.

• Acted as shift care provider for 10-30 at-risk youth in a level 14 residential group home facility, most children were in placement and developmentally disabled.
• Worked on a team of social workers, therapists, and court specialists with foster parents or parents in treatment to provide therapeutic services.
• Carried out treatment plans with children using play and music therapy.
• Developed a basic weekly computer skills activity surrounding computer literacy through storytelling and artwork.

publications

• “1492: Western Expansion and Western Subjugation,” in Columbus, Confrontation, Christianity: The European-American Encounter Revisited, O’Keefe, T. ed.: Forbes Mill Press, 1994.
• “Method and System for Disseminating Audio Recordings Over a Computer Network,” Patent Application #09/740117, filed December 18, 2000.

presentations

• (2007, October 25). Migrating from an Existing Course Management System to Sakai. Presented at Educause 2007, Seattle, WA.
• (2008, April 13). How to Listen to and Involve Your Faculty. Presented at Questionmark 2008 Users Conference, San Antonio, Texas.

references available upon request

Current Studies

I try to use standards as a personal guide to my own career development and how I approach instructional design. Since so much of eLearning is now about designing communities rather than simply converting slideshows into Flash, I have found that technology training and empowerment are as critical a part of my job and my team’s own function as web coding. Daily we perform analysis, train, teach, guide, assess to make sure that our faculty are as supported as our students are. While I might not be up in front of a classroom everyday, I still consider myself an educator and also a technology advocate in the classroom, virtual or otherwise.

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) together with the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) developed standards for Technology Leaders and Facilitators that I hold very close to my heart. I included the links below for good measure, since they are too exhaustive to cover here in detail. I have felt that my education and career path are guiding me along understanding and internalizing both of these sets of standards.

• Technology Leadership Standards
• Technology Facilitator Standards

My courses:

• EPSY 457: Computer Uses in Education
• EPSY 590 NET: Networks for Learning
• EPSY 474: Evaluating Learning Technologies
• EPSY 490: Developments in Educational Psychology – Learning and Classroom Management
• EPS 415 XM: Information Technology Ethics
• EPSY 590 TER: Technology & Education Reform
• EPSY 556: Analysis of Advanced Instructional Technologies
• EPSY 590VE: Virtual Worlds For Education

My projects and activities:

Education:

• Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA: B.S., Psychology
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL: M.Ed, Curriculum, Technology, & Education Reform
• Academy of Art, San Francisco, CA: selected graphic design courses
• Art Center College Of Design, Pasadena, CA: selected graphic design courses
• The Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, Los Angeles, CA: current employ

Reflections and Miscellany

My favorite educational resources:

Hmm, there’s so many. I can post this file up here, it’s an OPML file. You can download and import it into your Firefox or IE7 newsfeeds to get the latest news from all of these sites. I use Google Reader. Here’s my list, it covers everything from blogging, ed-tech, ed policy, and eLearning mostly.