Biography
My name is Avi Hyman and I am the University of Toronto's Director of Academic & Collaborative Technologies, and Institutional Strategist for Academic Technologies in the Centre for Teaching Support & Innovation (the University of Toronto's faculty development group).
I am an anthropologist with a doctoral degree from OISE. For the past couple of decades I have been fortunate to have positions which have allowed me to both think strategically about technology in higher education, and also have the opportunity to actualize ideas on an operational day-to-day level. Prior to taking on that kind of role for the University of Toronto as a whole, I served as director of academic technology for the Faculty of Medicine, and before that OISE.
Functionally, I am responsible for providing strategic and tactical leadership in the development and implementation of information technology services that support the academic mission of Canada's largest university, and one of the top ten universities in the world.
I am working with faculty, students, academic administrators, and teaching support and instructional technology units to advance the University's academic mission and in particular, its commitment to teaching.
There is also a certain duality in my current position. I am working as part of the University of Toronto's Centre for Teaching Support and Innovation (CTSI), as well as part of the University of Toronto's CIO's Office, in the central university's Information and Technology Services (I+TS) portfolio.
When time permits, I teach (as an associate faculty member in the Department of Theory & Policy Studies in Education) and do some research; my last project over the summer involved geotagging old manhole covers in Toronto and connecting the metadata to historical records of urban development found in the City Archives and UofT Map Library. Ask me why if you are curious :)
Specialties: Thinking Outside the Box and Brokering Relationships.
Please contact me if you have any questions or thoughts about academic technologies, eLearning, teaching online or anything else for that matter :)
Industry Expertise (3)
Education/Learning
Think Tanks
Information Technology and Services
Areas of Expertise (3)
Educational Technology
Technology in Higher Education
Teaching & Learning Technologies
Education (1)
University of Toronto: BSc, MA, EdD, Anthropology, Education
Affiliations (2)
- University of Toronto Information + Technology Services
- Centre for Teaching Support & Innovation University of Toronto
Social