Teaching, professional responsibilites and research

Dr. John Hollenbeck teaching specializes in Distance Learning, the use of the World Wide Web in education, foundations of Instructional Technology and Cognition. His research priority is studying the creation of democratic learning environments using electronically based collaborative learning. This seeks to address challenge of making education accessible to the “non–traditional” student, a term that describes the vast majority of ODU graduate students. John’s foundational interest in instructional technology is in the perspective it gives to educational practice. Often educators speak of “infusing” technology into the school, yet he contends that the institution is itself a technology, mostly of practices being carried out with a casual certainty as to their validity. Educational reform can be greatly informed by the point of view offered by the sometimes revolutionary demands of creating personally meaningful media artifacts. John is a University Representative to the Virginia Educational Technology Association. He will undoutably take on more responsibilities as he gets settled in at ODU.

Professional Activities and History

John Hollenbeck joined the faculty at Old Dominion in 2001. Prior to this appointment, he taught from 1996 - 2001 at San Francisco State University. His courses concerned the use of emerging media in a wide variety of educational and training environments, including educational web authoring, distance education, institutional technology planning and cognition. John has also been called upon to provide leadership in design and use of instructional technology across the campus community. The Provost of SFSU appointed him Chair of the Distance Education Task Force in his second year on campus.
Dr. Hollenbeck’s task force completed a report recommending optimal ways for SFSU to become involved with distributed learning, both in support of campus students and for educational outreach. He also created a technology plan for the College of Education at SFSU,and was elected Chair for the Educational Technology Advisory Committee.

Dr. Hollenbeck is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he studied critical theory and social issues as they related to instructional communication and technology. This work was directed by Dr. Ann Devany, and was informed by Dr. Michael Striebel, Dr. Herbert Kliebard, Dr. Chere Gibson and Dr. Theodore Pope. His main educational influences are John Dewey, Larry Cuban and Elliot Eisner.

Background

John was born and raised in Long Beach, CA, where he was trained as a classical trombonist in one of the best public music programs in the country. He enjoyed a 20-year career as freelance trombonist in Los Angeles, performing with the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, the Los Angeles Opera, Walt Disney
Studios and other venues. John is still active as a trombone soloist and performer. In his 12th year with the Oregon Bach Festival, Dr.Hollenbeck performed on that group’s 2001 Grammy Awared winning performance of Krzysztof Penderecki’s Credo.

John’s interest in education grew out of his many creative efforts in delivering educational concerts to area school children.