Open SUNY Online Teaching Ambassador 2018 – Oneonta: Jiang Tan

Jiang Tan, Ed.D, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Secondary Education and Educational Technology at SUNY Oneonta. She joined the faculty in fall 2015 to teach the graduate online courses for the college’s Instructional Technology Specialist program. During the past two years, she has revamped and taught 7 out of the 8 core technology courses of the program and 60 of her students have received Master’s degrees. Dr. Tan is actively involved in integrating new technology tools in both classroom and online teaching environments. Her research interests are online education, teacher education, and instructional design.

Dr. Tan received her Master’s and Doctor’s degrees in education from Texas Tech University with an academic focus on instructional technology and curriculum instruction. Prior to coming to SUNY Oneonta, she’d worked at SUNY Cobleskill for 12 years, where she served as Director of Online Education and Faculty Development. Using her expertise and skills in instructional technology, she provided training to both faculty and students. Dr. Tan built the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at SUNY Cobleskill and had been a key resource on the campus to all classroom and office technology applications, online instructional design, delivery, and management of different CMS. She had developed and taught a 6-week Online Teaching Academy, an intensive course to certify online instructors. She also compiled the Online Instructors’ Handbook after spending two years researching and studying the best practices in online education. In 2014, Dr. Tan received the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Professional Service.

I’ve been teaching different subjects and age groups for more than 40 years in different countries and have been involved in online education for nearly two decades. If teaching is a profession I am passionate about, online teaching has sustained my passion. To me, online teaching opens a bigger classroom where the sky is not the limit. I’m grateful for the opportunity of working with faculty members at Cobleskill and consider it a challenging job that built me and my online teaching/training experience. I enjoy exploring new technologies with my graduate students at Oneonta, online and in the Cloud. I feel very rewarded to share my teaching and training experience with these future Ed Tech Specialists. It is an honor to take the new responsibility as a SUNY Online Teaching Ambassador and I welcome new challenges!