robert fitzgerald, phd

The March 2008 edition the Carrick Institute's, Carrick Communique, carries an article on our Digital Learning Communities project. The article covers some of the key findings that are emerging from our project. You can download the PDF document (4MB) here.

I am a Research Fellow (RFCD 330107; 280100) in the Australian Institute for Sustainable Communities at the University of Canberra and Director of an ACIAR-funded research project based in Cambodia. I have a strong record of research and publication in information and communications technology (ICT) particularly around its application to learning and capacity-building. The Australian Research Council’s (ARC) College of Experts recognise me as an 'expert of international standing' and I serve as an Assessor (INTREADER) for their National Competitive Grants Program (NCGP). I have published over thirty-five research and conference papers and in the last ten years have attracted over $560 000 in competitive grant funding. I am a highly-regarded teacher and an active researcher (UC Researcher Level 4) who has successfully undertaken funded research in the areas of learning, literacy and information technologies. I have held a research fellowship at the University of Canberra since 2004 and have over sixteen years experience in research, teaching and administration in higher education. My two current projects, Digital Learning Communities (Carrick Institute for learning and teaching in Higher Education) and Electronic Marketing Communication Systems in Cambodia (Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research), are leading-edge projects attracting international interest and involvement.

Areas of Interest

• Elearning and the application of Web2.0 and social technologies such as blogs, wikis and folksonomies (tagging) to learning and problem solving.
• ICT integration and the application of collaborative technologies
  to learning and teaching; the development of online communities of
  practice; and the use of team meeting systems such as Zing.
• Application of ICT for development (ICT4D) with recent successful experience working on a rural information and capacity building project in Cambodia.
• Activity Theory (cf Engestrom); Communities of Practice (cf Lave;
  Wenger) and Social Psychology (cf Vygotsky, Luria and Leontiev).
• Active builder-user currently working with Drupal, Moodle, Wordpress, Mediawiki, Elgg, OpenAcademic and other systems built on the LAMP platform.

Recent Conference/Media Bio
Dr Robert Fitzgerald is a Research Fellow in the Australian Institute
for Sustainable Communities at the University of Canberra. His research and
consultancy work explores the role of information and communication
technologies (ICTs) in learning particularly as it relates to ICT
integration, information literacy and building online communities. His
current work involves the application of social software and Web2.0
technologies to the development of collaborative systems for research
and learning. His funded projects, "Developing Digital Learning
Communities with Social Software" (Carrick Institute for Learning and
Teaching in Higher Education) and "Using SMS to Develop an Electronic
Marketing Communication System in Cambodia" (Australian Centre for
International Agricultural Research), are leading-edge projects
attracting international interest and involvement.

On a personal note, I was born in Champagne-Urbana, Illinois and have lived in the USA, Canada, England, Hawaii, Hong Kong and Australia. I am an Australian citizen and an eligible resident of Hong Kong, United Kingdom and United States of America. I now live in Canberra with my partner Jennifer and my four children Thomas (17), Geordie (14), Benjamin (11), Felix (9) and our lovely Australian Cattle dog, Halle (a Red Heeler).