Linda Tate

Dr. Tate’s background in this integration is wide-ranging. She holds a doctorate in English with a doctoral minor in Computer Science and Curriculum & Instruction, and has continued her own learning and development through numerous workshops and conferences. Such learning experiences include a weeklong workshop at Vancouver’s Simon Fraser University on designing e-learning courses and a weeklong NEH-sponsored workshop titled "Learning to Look," where Dr. Tate learned how to create and use digital stories in the classroom. Currently, Dr. Tate is co-leader of Shepherd University’s Teaching and Learning with Technology Roundtable, serves as Shepherd University liaison to the nationally renowned Teaching and Learning with Technology Group (TLT Group), and works with the TLT Group on a number of initiatives concerning the development of online communities.

She has been centrally involved with the development of the MarcoPolo: Internet Content for the Classroom project and has trained K-12 teachers in 30 states in methods for integrating Internet resources in the classroom. Last year, Dr. Tate developed and taught a graduate course for middle and high school teachers on Internet Integration in Humanities Education.

In addition to training teachers, Dr. Tate has used multimodal technologies in her own courses. She regularly uses course management software to deliver course content and has developed numerous techniques for asynchronous discussion, with a particular focus on building lively community. She asks students (including numerous English Education students and graduate Curriculum & Instruction students) to create projects that draw heavily on multimodal technologies, including digital stories and WebQuests.

Dr. Tate has shared the results of her work with national and international colleagues. Her conference presentations include: "The Role of Digital Stories in Helping Students Interpret Literature" (International Society for Exploring Teaching and Learning), "Creating a Web of Understanding: A Nonviolent Approach to Technology in Higher Education" (Swarthmore University), "WebQuests Go to College" (International Conference on College Teaching and Learning), "Developing Community Face-to-Face and Online" (invitational symposium on "Building Community and Connections Online and On Campus," an international meeting convened by the TLT Group with 25 face-to-face participants and 25 virtual participants—some from as far away as Australia—who joined the meeting via synchronous online delivery).

Dr. Tate is also an active writer. In addition to writing for national organizations and projects (including the Encyclopedia of Appalachia, the groundbreaking national Healthy Schools Summit, and the Action for Healthy Kids Initiative), Linda is also the author of a book, A Southern Weave of Women: Fiction of the Contemporary South, published by University of Georgia Press in 1994, and the editor of Conversations with Lee Smith, published in 2001 by the University Press of Mississippi. Her third volume, Power in the Blood: A Family Memoir, is slated for publication in 2006. She is currently at work on a new book, Reading and Writing the Self to Wellness.

Dr. Tate has been the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, including the Rockefeller Fellowship for the Humanities, which she held at Marshall University's Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Gender in Appalachia. Linda actively serves her local, state, and regional communities. She serves as president of the Shepherdstown Public Library Board of Trustees and has also served on the West Virginia Humanities Council Board of Directors.