Open Educational Resources Expert - Megan Lowe, PhD.

Dr. Francesco Crocco is Assistant Director for Instructional Support in the Office of Distance Learning at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette. Previously, he directed the award-winning Excelsior Online Writing Lab (OWL) and was an Assistant Professor of English at the Borough of Manhattan Community College of the City University of New York (CUNY). Dr. Crocco received his Ph.D. in English from the CUNY Graduate Center and has more than twenty years of experience in higher education. He has published two books and several peer-reviewed articles, delivered dozens of conference presentations, and received several major grants to research, design, and evaluate innovative pedagogy and instructional technology. 

Dr. Lindsey Keith-Vincent serves as the Associate Dean of Research, Outreach and Innovation in the College of Education and the Director of the Science and Technology Education Center (SciTEC) at Louisiana Tech University.  

Lindsey’s experiences and love for students have shaped her aspirations and guided her desire to help provide authentic educational experiences for every learner.  She is a first-generation college completer  earning a B.A. in Secondary English Education, an M.S. in Adult Education, certification in Biology Education, and an Ed.D. in Educational Leadership from Louisiana Tech University. She holds a certificate in Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania as well as a certificate from Johns Hopkins University in contact tracing, both acquired through Coursera. She also holds a certificate in Digital Wellness from the Digital Wellness Institute .

Dr. Whitney Sivils-Sawyer is a passionate educator is the Director of the Center for Instructional Technology at Louisiana Tech University. Whitney has a B.A. in Psychology, an M.Ed. in Educational Technology Leadership, and an Ed.D. in Educational Administration – Higher Education Admin. Whitney has been in teaching education for over 15 years and is passionate about getting effective teachers into the classroom while giving them the technology tools necessary to be successful. She teaches instructional technology at Louisiana Tech to teacher candidates and provides technology professional development to faculty across the University of Louisiana System. 

Beth Blankenship received her Master’s in English at UNO in 1995. Before joining UNO, she taught part-time for Delgado and Nunez community colleges, where she first engaged with online and classroom technology when her reading students partnered with students in an Arkansas community college to build a website to share their experience reading Shakespeare’s tragedy, Othello. She is currently the Director of UNO’s Center for Teaching Innovation (CTI), after serving as a full-time instructor in the Department of English from 2001 through 2015. 

Meredith King is the Assistant Director for the Center for Teaching Innovation at the University of New Orleans, where she helps improve the teaching and learning experiences of instructors to achieve student success. She holds a Bachelor’s degree from Sarah Lawrence (2005) and a Master’s degree from Bowling Green State (2015), where she specialized her research in asynchronous community formation and memetic spreadability. Additionally, Meredith is an adjunct instructor at Nicholls State University, teaching Cultural Studies and English Composition entirely asynchronously. Beyond the countless workshops and trainings she runs regularly, Meredith is particularly proud of initiating UNO’s first faculty reading group. Meredith has also taken the lead in building UNO’s website for inclusive student online learning orientation, providing a valuable resource for students to learn about online learning platforms and tools. She has collaborated with instructors from around the country to develop engaging, effective, and inclusive online courses. Meredith helped develop and run the Bridging the Divide Online Bootcamp, which focused on using pedagogical methods such as universal design for learning, authentic assessment, and backward design to guide instructors in building online courses. Her recent research interests include using artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models (LLMs) as pedagogical tools to rethink teaching and curriculum. 

Rebecca Kelley is the Digital Inclusion and eLearning Program Manager at LOUIS: The Louisiana Library Network and the Louisiana Board of Regents. Rebecca manages the Louisiana Statewide Digital Inclusion Pilot, which is a one-year effort to address digital inclusion needs in Louisiana through five public libraries (as pilot sites) with an emphasis on digital literacy. The assessment of this pilot will help inform a sustainable statewide digital literacy program. Additionally, Rebecca promotes the importance of digital equity within the state’s higher education institutions with an emphasis on closing the digital skills divide on campus. She is the digital equity subject matter expert within the LOUIS consortium and has developed a robust network of state and national digital inclusion leaders. Rebecca organizes professional development opportunities for the LOUIS consortium, gives presentations on digital equity topics throughout the state, and communicates regularly with stakeholders to share digital equity news, research, and opportunities. Before joining LOUIS in 2022, she served for ten years as a research and instruction librarian at LSU Libraries.  Rebecca holds a master’s degree in library and information science from Louisiana State University. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the Capital Area Corporate Recycling Council (CACRC), a statewide nonprofit that refurbishes and redirects technology to individuals impacted by the digital divide and in need of a low-cost device.