Nick Baker has been appointed acting director of the Office of Open Learning for a period of one year.

Seconded from his position as learning specialist in the Centre for Teaching and Learning, Baker has focused on teaching improvement, curriculum design, the integration of new learning technologies, and online education over the last few years.

Nick Baker.

In announcing the appointment, Alan Wright, vice-provost, teaching and learning, said, “The Office of Open Learning is key to the next stage of online and hybrid education development at the University of Windsor, and Nick Baker’s expertise, energy and commitment to fostering deep learning through the reflective use of learning technologies will be critical to the our growth in this area in the coming year.”

Prior to coming to Windsor, Baker was an instructional designer and then production manager at the Educational Resources Unit of the University of Queensland Teaching and Educational Development Institute in Australia. He led a large team of instructional designers, web developers, programmers, graphic designers, video specialists, desktop publishers, and administrative staff, and managed a wide variety of instructional projects ranging from print-based instructional resources, to major web-based custom resources, and award-winning simulation projects.

Baker has taught extensively, both in his home discipline of ecology and conservation biology, and in graduate teaching and learning programs. He was a co-recipient of Australia’s National Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning, and has been the principal investigator or a co-investigator on teaching and learning grants totalling $500,000 over the last 10 years, primarily in the area of learning technologies.