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Google G Suite for Education: Inside and Outside of the Box

Anita Flanagan (Google)

Brian Hendriks (Google)

Christopher Hopkins-Ward
Christopher has been working in New York City on the Jamboard team at Google since 2017. He trains schools, clients, and customers how to use the Jamboard.

Marta McAlister
Marta​ is ​a​ Program Manager ​on the G Suite for Education product team, focused on higher education. Marta works with colleges and universities using ​Google solutions around the world. Marta has also worked on the Android and Chrome for Education product teams, working with k12 schools for 5+ years. Prior to her work on education products, Marta worked on the Global Business Organization at Google, working with digital agencies that support customers that use AdWords. Before Google, Marta was a G Suite for Education teacher; she taught 6th and 7th grade Special Education and mathematics, in the Bronx, NY. Marta has a M.Ed. in Special Education and Childhood Education from Hunter College in NY,​ and studied International Relations as an undergraduate at Brown University​. When she’s not at work, Marta is often traveling, reading and running.

Anita McCarthy
Anita joined Manhattan College in July 2016  as the Information Technology Services (ITS) Training Coordinator.  She is responsible for the campus IT Knowledge Management and has been instrumental in the ITS Knowledge Centered Support initiative.  Anita is coordinating major initiatives to improve technology knowledge on campus both internal and external to IT.

She has been instrumental in training the ITS student workers who work on the 90% student run service desk and recently set up a blended learning training course on the school’s LMS.

Prior to joining Manhattan College, Anita worked in both private and public schools in New Jersey, most recently as a Technology Instructor. In addition, Anita was on the Technology Integration Committee for the Newark Archdiocese,  where she was tasked with integrating technology into the curriculum. Anita worked with teachers in all content areas to design effective models of instruction using the latest technology tools, including gamification and online learning systems.

Anita holds an M.S. in Teaching from Fordham University, and a B.S. in Economics from the University of Vermont. She is currently pursuing a M.S. in Instructional Design and Delivery at Manhattan College.

Richard Musal
Richard has been a part of Manhattan College IT since 2000 when he started as a Graduate Assistant for a PT3 grant called TITAN (Transforming Instruction Through Technology And Networking). That office was institutionalized under the name JET (Jasper Educational Technology) in 2003 and Richard was asked to Coordinate it. In 2011 Richard was promoted to Assistant Director of Client Services & Operations. He is now responsible for directing all efforts in regard to technology in computer labs, classrooms, and personal computers in offices around the Manhattan College campus. Richard has presented at PT3 conferences as well as at TeamDynamix user conferences, Nercomp conferences, and online webinars. Richard is experienced in developing and mentoring staff as well as developing systems to provide exceptional customer service. 

Lauren Paradise
Laurin started at Manhattan College in April 2017, as a reference & instruction librarian with a specialty in digital humanities. She is involved in the college's initiative by the Digital Arts and Humanities committee to create and support classes with components of this developing field. Additionally, she is the subject liaison for the library to the History, Government, Urban Studies, Sociology, Communication, Labor Studies, and Peace Studies programs. She has been offering workshops to students and faculty in Zotero to address the former's need for additional help with citations and the latter's need for a reliable method to organize research sources. Laurin has a B.A. from Hampshire College and an MLIS from Pratt Institute with an advanced certificate in digital humanities.

Jason Parkhill
Jason joined Colby in June 2007 as Director of Academic Information Technology Services. With the Academic ITS staff, he is responsible for managing the support and development infrastructure for the curricular and scholarly application of information technology, assisting faculty members in the evaluation and assessment of applications of information technology and their effectiveness in meeting educational objectives, identifying new and innovative technology applications, and exploring opportunities for collaboration with other institutions. He actively participates in the Consortium of Liberal Arts Colleges (CLAC), is a representative to EDUCAUSE and ELI, is a steering committee member of the Partnership for Liberal Arts Collaboration and Exploration (PLACE), and was a 2006 Frye Leadership Institute Fellow (now the Leading Change Institute). He has worked at private liberal arts colleges since 1997. Prior to Colby, he was the Senior Associate Director of ITS at Washington & Jefferson College where he oversaw establishment of an instructional technology center for faculty development, was involved in formation of the Pittsburgh Blackboard User's Group, and was co-creator of the Culturally Authentic Pictorial Lexicon.

Ravi Ravishanker
Ravi is currently the CIO at Wellesley College and is responsible for leading the Library & Technology Services. He began this assignment on Nov 15, 2010. Ravi is currently leading the transition to Workday at the College and has managed several major technology transitions such as Sakai, Google Apps for Education and Kaltura and implement an institutional repository, web-scale discovery as well as several key digitization projects in the Library. Ravi was the Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Pace University in New York from August 2009 till Nov 2010. In this role, he was responsible for coordinating and supporting all the IT needs of the University. Ravi was responsible for transforming the IT at Pace to be a highly service oriented organization that also began serious engagement in academic support. He led many of the key institution-wide projects such as Electronic Portfolio, the iStrategy Data Warehouse implementation, and research and choice of Drupal as the new Web Content Management System. Prior to coming to Pace, he worked at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT from since 1986 till 2009 in various capacities and was the Director of Technology Support Services before becoming the Associate VP June 2006. Ravi has managed several major technology implementations at Wesleyan and co-directed the Electronic Portfolio project at Wesleyan. He is the author of several major software such as the Electronic Portfolio core, several underlying E-portfolio applications, Wesleyan Events Calendar, and the Classifieds system. In his CIO role at Wesleyan, he was leading the organizational efforts in implementing a new web content management system, the establishment of a New Media Lab to co-manage the University web efforts with University Communications, Green Computing and Virtualization efforts. Ravi received his MSc in Chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, in 1978. He completed his PhD in computational chemistry from Hunter College and MA in Computer Science from Queens College of the City University of New York in 1986.

Mark Wardecker
Mark joined Colby in August 2015 as an Instructional Technologist. As a member of the Academic Information Technology Services group, he consults with faculty on the wide spectrum of educational technologies available to them and helps them manage effective technology environments for instruction in support of specific curricular goals. He also serves as a key liaison to other curricular support groups at the College. He has worked in higher education since 2004. First, as Dickinson College’s Digital Services Librarian, and more recently, as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Library Administration and Acting Classics Librarian at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. He has contributed (with Emilia Marcyk and Angela Stangl) to E-Learning and the Academic Library (McFarland, 2016) and (with Ed Webb) to Doctor Who and Philosophy (Open Court, 2010), as well as having written other nonfiction and short fiction.

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