ASU’s Applied Learning Technologies Institute (alt^I), headed by Dr. Samuel DiGangi and Dr. Angel Jannasch-Pennell, serves as ASU’s connection between faculty, researchers, and technical infrastructure in support of global outreach. The role of ASU in distance education extends beyond the traditional University degree programs to recognize and support non-degree, certificate programs, and in essence, foster a culture of lifelong learning.

We design and support ASU’s extended campus infrastructure – web-based course delivery, media production and distribution, collaborative online environments. The University College, School of Extended Education online resources are developed and maintained by staff under the direction of alt^I. Through this strategic collaboration, ASU's distributed education resources are positioned to scale to meet the needs of a constantly changing local and global community.

Our focus centers on combining robust and responsive infrastructure with research-based pedagogy, to enable the most effective instructional delivery platform and approaches. With the combined experience and expertise of ASU’s leading faculty, researchers, and technologists, alt^I is a synergistic mechanism for extending our instructional impact, through collaboration and partnership, beyond the physical classroom and around the world.

Dedicated to enabling and enhancing an environment of lifelong learning, alt^I has established the IDEAL (Integrated Data to Enhance Arizona's Learning), providing every k12 student and every k12 educator access and resources to enhance learning and instruction. This project combines innovative, opensource technologies and resources—with access to professional development, formative assessment, and ultimately, courses and training. We're positioned to lead in enhancing and extending resources for teachers and students, in Arizona, and throughout the world.

alt^I is comprised of six core, interrelated and integrated units:

Angel Jannasch-Pennell directs Research and Outreach initiatives in alt^I . From collaborative projects across Colleges and Centers, to community-based endeavors and University partnerships, Angel's focus brings an applied, research driven focus to the Institute, coordinating teams of researchers, faculty, and technical experts toward the proposal, development and implementation of technology innovation. A unique strength of our organization resides in our ability to engage the collective intelligence of our community, and to leverage the technical resources of the University Technology Office. Angel's efforts bring together the skill, technology, and talent of a seemingly large central organization, with the specific goals and priorities--and ideas--of the Colleges, programs, centers and individuals.

Guy Mullins, Director of New Media Studio, will engage in vibrant discussion with any takers on what exactly constitutes New media vs old media or just plain ordinary media, heads our activities in the area of..well, new media. Guy is a skilled and accomplished videographer, and knows a thing or two about audio as well. He is the self appointed PodFather of ASU's iTunes U initiative, and integral to our media creation and exploration.

Jim Casey directs Media Distribution Systems. After all, if you have New Media, there needs to be a way to distribute it. Jim's expertise spans multiple areas, from data distribution and networking, applied use of our Internet2 and Lambda rail connectivity, to next generation video conferencing and interactive learning environments.

Ruvi Wijesuriya leads Learning Technologies, a generic, old-skool term that doesn't do justice to the area of coverage and support provided by Ruvi. Among other things, Ruvi is responsible for our Course Management Systems, Blackboard and Sakai (what is Sakai?..stay tuned), as well as training and support of faculty and instructors in the use of technologies.

Marc Van Horne directs our Distributed Learning initiatives. Another general term of a variety of activities which include what would a few years ago been referred to as Distance Learning or Extended Education. The University Technology Office provides the Learning Platform that supports, delivers and enables the learning platform for classroom-based instruction, and beyond. The Applied Learning Technologies Institute coordinates the course construction and delivery teams responsible for extending classroom-based instruction, and toward developing new and refined approaches for ASU's Learning Platform.

Ron Page directs Technology Integration. What? That's what we said! But he likes that term. Seriously we chose that term to indicate..well, integration of function and application. The part about a seeming contradiction between 'Production Environments' and 'Innovation'. Ron is the connector between those two concepts that for years, and to this day for many institutions, remain contradictory terms. Ron leads the implementation team that bridges--integrates, the research and need driven goals, with the production environment that makes it happen - and keeps it secure.