For 20+ years, Keith Bowen, Ph.D., has worked in the fields of international relief, development, and conflict resolution, using new media and technology in teaching and learning efforts in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, South Africa, Rwanda, Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, as well as in courses for students around the world who aspire to work in these professional fields. He continues this work at Stanford, where he uses technology to connect university students in the U.S. and other high-income nations with students in fragile states and zones of conflict to tackle the kind of complex “wicked” global problems that require international collaboration to address. Working with Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and the Center of Excellence in Research, Education, and Cultural Studies (CEREC) at the Modern University for Business & Sciences in Beirut, Lebanon, Bowen is currently leading an effort to use Virtual Reality and other technologies to create advanced learning environments, including development of a series of Virtual Refugee Sites for immersive study of humanitarian conditions for Syrian refugees.
Drawing on this work as well as his experience developing online learning tools and environments for brand name companies in the private sector, international non-profits, governmental and inter-governmental organizations, K-12 schools, and higher education institutions, Bowen has also designed, launched, and now directs Stanford’s Learning Design Challenge, a program for GSE-IT and the Stanford Accelerator for Learning. He teaches EDUC/ENGR 391 along with a two-quarter sequence of EDUC 254, which focus on applying research in the learning sciences, human-centered design, entrepreneurship, and social entrepreneurship to EdTech projects.
Related Links:
- Learning Design Challenge
- Bowen, K., Barry, M., Jowell, A., Maddah, D., & Alami, N. H. (2021). Virtual Exchange in Global Health: An innovative educational approach to foster socially responsible overseas collaboration. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 18, 1-11.
- Bowen, K., Forssell, K., Rosier, S. (2020). Theory of Change in Learning Experience Design. In Schmidt, M. et al. (Eds.), Learner and User Experience Research. EdTech Books, 2020.
- Bowen, K., Ullah Khan, A., & Wake, A. (2019). Virtual Exchange in Journalism: Collaborative reporting through new media and technology. Australian Journalism Review, 41(1), 53-66.
