Team Members

In April of 2006, Suzanne Bienert was hired to develop new courses and revise the CEDev certificate program courses currently offered online.  Suzanne joined Stacie Bird and Bill Houser, who were finishing the development of the Food Safety and Sanitation for Food Manufactures course.

After creating a template for new courses, the team began to revise the CEDev certificate program courses.  Within a few short months the team developed CEDev 430 (Principles of Economic Development Planning) and CEDev 509 (Population, Land Use, and Municipal Finance) offered in fall 2006.  The team then developed CEDev 452 (Rural Organization) and CEDev 500 (Principles of Economic Development Planning and Leadership) offered in Spring 2007 and are now developing CEDev 505 (Leadership Development) and CEDev 575 (Methods and Techniques for Community and Economic Development) which will be offered in summer of 2007.

In addition to the CEDev courses, the team developed YFE597B (Applied Youth Development), ANSC 215 (Pets in Society) and AGBM 200 (Introduction to Agribusiness Management).

Akbar Khouzani was hired in January 2007 to assist with course development and integration of technologies to enhance online learning.   He is actively engaged in the development of Flash activities and simulations to augment course curriculum.

 

Suzanne S. Bienert, eLearning Coordinator and Senior Instructional Designer

Suzanne holds a M.Ed. from The Pennsylvania State University in Higher Education and a B.S. from Lock Haven University in Management Science. For almost five years, she served as the instructional designer and multimedia specialist, developing courses for the Institutional Research certificate in the College of Education (Dr. Fred Volkwein, program director).  From 1999 to 2002, Suzanne served as the production/marketing manager for The American Journal of Distance Education and other publications (Dr. Michael Moore, Editor).  During her years of service she led a team to produce three books of readings and was in charge of graphic design for the book covers. In 2001 Suzanne designed a new cover for The American Journal of Distance Education. Under her management, AJDE sales increased 60 percent.

Suzanne’s responsibilities include:
  • Managing course production and staffing schedules
  • Assisting faculty members articulate measurable course objectives, and then identifying, developing, and implementing appropriate technology/instructional solutions that will prepare students to reach those objectives in an e-learning environment
  • Advising faculty and staff about best practices in e-learning
  • Designing assessment instruments to evaluate courses

Akbar Khouzani, Multimedia Specialist

Akbar holds a B.S. from The DeVry University in Information Technology. For Nine years, he served as the district technology specialist and operation manager for TJMAXX.  From 2000 to 2004, Akbar owned a multimedia company and worked as a computer support consultant. Areas of interest are System Admin, Flash development, JavaScript programming and network administration.

Akbar’s responsibilities include:
  • Working on teams with faculty and staff to integrate interactive technologies in online courses to enhance learning
  • Ensuring accessibility standards (Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act) are implemented in online courses. 
  • Writing code in CSS, XML, XHTML, JavaScript, and other software programs
  • Conceptualizing, designing, and maintaining eLearning web site