Center for Online Professional Education

Robert Spielvogel directs technology planning and implementation for the Education Development Center as EDC’s Chief Technology Officer and more recently as Division Director for Applied Research and Innovation. This division includes EDC’s Center for Online Professional Education, the Center for Children and Technology, and US Department of Education Institute for Education Sciences’ funded Northeast and Islands Regional Lab. His work now includes strategic planning and direction of EDC’s R&D activities that are focused on K-12 education. His work as CTO involves strategic planning and supervision of EDC's internal and external networks, Web and other online development activities, database systems and content management systems for use by projects throughout EDC. He coordinates planning for information and communications technology literacy for EDC’s personnel and serves as an internal consultant to domestic and international projects on innovative and effective uses of ICT in project work. In this capacity he assists in proposal development and in reviews of existing project strategies.

A primary component of his own project work at EDC has involved designing and conducting a wide range of needs analyses, results frameworks, evaluations, case studies and policy development for educational systems that utilize technology to improve teaching and learning. Clients for this work include a variety of science and technology museums and centers, MIT’s Media Lab, IBM's Reinventing Education effort, Intel, NASA, the US Department of Energy, private foundations, state education departments and school districts. He was part of the research team assembled by the US Department of Education on new models and strategies for researching the impact of technology on schools which is now a book for Teachers College Press.

Internationally he is working with ministries of education in Indonesia, Macedonia, Zambia, Pakistan, Yemen, Egypt and India as part of US A.I.D. funded projects to develop ICT-based policies and innovations in education.

Prior to joining EDC, Robert Spielvogel was the Executive Director of PBS's Learning Link on-line network, Vice-President for New Business Development for the US affiliate of the Canadian Nabu Network, a cable-based software delivery system, and education and entertainment editor for Time, Inc.’s cable delivered software service. His earlier work involved software development based on cognitive development principles for Citibank, Time-Life Books and Open Court Publishing. In addition, he has taught graduate courses in software design and evaluation. Prior to his work in telecommunications, he was an elementary school principal and a classroom teacher.