Browse School of Humanities and Sciences

Sydney Boulaphinh

Undergraduate, Science, Technology and Society
Softball Camp Counselor, Women's Softball Program

Contact Info
Mail Code: 6150
sboula05@stanford.edu

BioDr. Touria Boumehdi Tomasi serves on the faculty of the Language Center at Stanford University. She teaches all levels of undergraduate and graduate courses in Modern Standard Arabic and Spanish, including accelerated and intensive offerings. Also, in Spring 2016, she will teach a new course in the Department of Languages Cultures and Literatures (DLCL), “Aljamía language and literature through the study and analyze of aljamiado manuscripts.”
With over 31 years of professional and academic experiences, Dr. Boumehdi has worked as Co-Director of the Spanish Department at the University of Rabat and Professor of Spanish and Arabic in Spain and France at the University of Toulouse le Mirail, the Toulouse School of Business, IAAE Oviedo and ECLAP Valladolid. She completed her Doctorate with a joint Ph.D. and highest honors in Spanish and Arabic at the University of Toulouse, a Master’s degree in Spanish Language and Literature at the University of Mohammed V in Rabat, and an In-Depth Studies Diploma (DEA) including five post-undergraduate years of study in Oriental Languages, Literature, and Civilizations from the University of Paris III in New Sorbonne. Dr. Boumehdi also holds an MBA in International Marketing and Commerce from E S C Toulouse School of Business and hold 6 years experiences as a Export Manager in 3 French technology firms.
Included among her recent book and other publications are several articles and her doctoral dissertation published in Spain in 2012 on the topic of Aljamiado (15th and 16th century Spanish manuscripts written in Arabic) language and literature.
Dr. Boumehdi has been teaching at Stanford since July 2012 where she is a certified ACTFL OPI and WPT Tester of Arabic.

Keith Bowen

Director, Learning Design Challenge, SAL Digital Learning

BioFor 20+ years, I have worked in the fields of international relief, development, and conflict resolution, building capacity in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, South Africa, Rwanda, Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, as well as educating students in the U.S., Europe, and other countries who aspire to work in these fields.

Academics & Film
I've worked as an academic and filmmaker, creating educational documentaries on liberation movements around the world, which I've then used with university students in my classrooms. I've had several programs distributed by the Discovery Channel, which has been rewarding, but what has been especially remarkable to me is the response of my students. I've come to appreciate the power of narrative and immediacy of film to transform students' perceptions of the world and their place in it.

Learning Design
Along with an emphasis on narrative and immediacy, I've designed interactive programs that draw students into learning through exploration and discovery - with a dynamically shifting experience based on student choice and response. I've also designed learning programs featuring advanced multiplayer simulations with both live and online interaction.

Scale
I've taken this work to scale. In my work for the U.S. Government and international humanitarian organizations, I've designed courses that have been completed by tens of thousands of students and practitioners, not only at the State Department, USAID, relief agencies, and universities in the U.S., but also at comparable institutions in other countries, and even in internet cafes and refugee camps around the world. I've earned about a dozen awards for these efforts and have delivered presentations on them for the Under Secretary of State, the Senate Appropriations Committee, representatives of the the 57 countries of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the 35 countries of the Organization for American States, and others.

Virtual Exchange & "Wicked" Global Problems
I am continuing this work at Stanford. My focus now is designing media and technology programs to bring university students in the U.S. and other high-income countries into extended contact with counterpart students in fragile states and zones of conflict to address complex problems that no single country can solve on its own. As students work collaboratively to address these "wicked" problems, we measure advances in learning and shifts in attitude through qualitative and quantitative methods.

I have also launched and serve as Director for the Stanford Learning Design Challenge, which supports students across campus who seek to leverage research in the learning sciences, methodologies in human-centered design, and breakthroughs in emerging technology to change what’s possible in teaching and learning. https://edtech.stanford.edu/

This is an extraordinary time for those who design media and technology solutions for teaching and learning. Blended in smart combinations, especially with traditional in-person learning, the new tools we have are powerful:

- Visual narrative, through its expression in digital cinema
- Expanding and interconnecting networks of lifelong learners
- Complex human interaction, including multiplayer games and simulations
- Complex machine interaction, including generative AI, dynamically responsive to user needs
- Statistical data analysis, upon which to base informed, iterative human-centered design
- Worldwide electronic distribution, especially to inexpensive mobile devices

If we do this right, the world will be much better for it.