Ken Tothero (University of Texas at Austin)

Kenneth Tothero is manager of External and Special Projects in the Learning Technology Center, College of Education, The University of Texas at Austin. His background includes eleven years teaching physics at the secondary level followed by seven years developing educational software for companies such as Holt, Rinehart, Winston; Addison, Wesley, Longman; Steck-Vaughn, and Tivoli Systems. In 1998 one of these products, the Holt Physics Interactive Tutor was awarded a NewMedia InVision Gold Medal as the yearâ??s best secondary level education product.
Mr. Tothero came to the Learning Technology Center (LTC) in 2001 and is now responsible for all of the externally funded research and development efforts undertaken by the LTC. Recent activities include the Presidential Timeline project, an ongoing effort in partnership with the National Archivesâ?? twelve Presidential Libraries. The effort developed a web-based infrastructure for the dissemination and educational use of digitized assets from the Presidential Libraries. At the time of its rollout, on Presidentsâ?? Day, 2007, the resource contained over 800 digitized objects. Efforts are currently underway to more than double that number over the coming months.
Current activities include an effort to integrate handheld devices into teaching and learning in the College of Education, supported with $55,000 in funding from UTâ??s Information Technology Advisory Committee. As part of this effort, Mr. Tothero has coordinated an extensive development effort to convert a number of paper-based assessments to a handheld environment.