Directors of IITTL

Gerald Knezek, Ph.D., Regents Professor of Learning Technologies, and Rhonda Christensen, Ph.D., Research Professor, are Co-Directors of IITTL. Since its founding in 1999, IITTL has housed a Capacity Building and Implementation Grant in the Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology Program, an evaluation contract for a large Technology Innovation Challenge grant—Key Instructional Design Strategies, and an Intel Preservice Teach to the Future grant. IITTL has also been a collaborator on a PT3 grant directed by the University of Nevada-Reno and was closely affiliated with an NSF gender/equity grant—Bringing Up Girls in Science. Current IITTL projects include MSOSW Going Green! Middle Schoolers Out to Save the World, Fab @ School Classroom and STEM Pre-Academy. Additional projects include a Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education simMentoring Grant, an NSF Disabilities Research grant on Simulated Enhanced Training for Teachers, and an NSF Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers project, Middle Schoolers Out to Save the World.

Gerald Knezek, Ph.D. [ Vita ]Research interests include measuring attitudes and dispositions toward information technology, developing and testing formal models of technology integration, developing practical research designs, and refining scaling methods and techniques. Dr. Knezek was co-recipient of the Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education Outstanding Research Paper Award in 2018. 

Rhonda Christensen, Ph.D. [ Vita ] is a research professor in the Learning Technologies Department in the College of Information at the University of North Texas. She serves as a Chair of the Information Technology Council for the Society for Information Technology in Teacher Education organization. She has co-authored and taught a pre-service technology integration course for more than 15 years. She also teaches doctoral courses on research design and analysis. Her research interests are in the impact of technology integration in education, enhancing STEM education in middle schools, measuring learning dispositions, and mobile learning in education. Dr. Christensen received a Fulbright Senior Specialist appointment to the Netherlands for 2017-18. She also received the Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education Outstanding Research Paper Award for 2018.