Meet Your Instructors

Cole W. Camplese

I am the Director of Education Technology Services for Penn State University. In this role, I have the opportunity to help direct and drive the direction of the University’s commitment to teaching and learning with technology. I am lucky enough to work with an amazing staff who are dedicated to transforming the use of technology in teaching and learning.  We focus our energy on instructional design, educational technology, digital media, and faculty development.  Currently at ETS, I am leading efforts to bring University wide podcasting and blogging services to faculty, staff, and students.  I am also responsible for the Digital Commons initiative, the TLT Symposium, components of the Blended Learning Initiative, Adobe Connect Pro, iTunes U, the TLT Communities, the PSU Serious Gaming Initiative, and supporting the use of ANGEL for teaching and learning ... there are a bunch of other little things that I deal with as well.

I focus all the time I can (when I am not being an administrator and managing my staff) thinking about how technology can be used to extend the reach of teaching and learning.  I travel quite a bit -- meeting with other Institutions, participating in the CIC Learning Technologies Committee, working with industry partners, giving talks, and exploring new opportunities.  You can keep up with the work I do and the stuff I am thinking about by reading my blog, Learning & Innovation and by keeping an eye on myUpdates blog.

Before becoming the Director of ETS, I spent the last six years as the Director of the IST Solutions Institute in the College of IST at Penn State University. In that role, it was my responsibility to set the strategic goals of the Institute and to direct a majority of the activities that go on there. I was given the opportunity to create an Institute from the ground up and I am very proud of the things we did and the people who did them.

While at IST, I taught IST 110 nearly every semester to our incoming freshman and loved every minute of it.  In addition to the face to face teaching I designed (along members of my team at SI) and taught the first hybrid and online sections of 110.  I was also the PI and chief administrator for the Pennsylvania Governor's School for Information Technology.  This program brought 75 of the Commonwealth's best and brightest rising seniors to campus for a five week residency program.  It was an amazing living laboratory where the innovation of the Institute could be put into practice.  As a matter of fact, most of the stuff we will do this semester was originally tested in the PGSIT.

Prior to Penn State I was part of a small start-up in the greater Philadelphia region. It was with Cogence Media that I got my first taste of using technology to enhance learning. We focused energy on the creation of OSHA training courseware — first on CD-ROM and then via the web. While I was there I started our web presence and worked to create the first versions of our high and low bandwidth online courseware. We did some pretty amazing things back in the day working with good old fashioned HTML, home grown content management, and Macromedia's Authorware. Cogence taught me a ton about what I do now and the people I worked with there showed me how you can be both committed to quality and innovation. There are days I miss the little shop in the woods where so much of what I do now was created.

I have a BS in Psychology from West Virginia University and an MS in Instructional Technology from Bloomsburg University.  I am the father to two wonderful little children.  My daughter, Madeline is six years old and her little brother, Max is almost one and a half.  You can keep up with me on Flickr, Twitter, del.icio.us, and at my PSU Blog.

Scott McDonald