Dr. Barry Sponder is a Professor of Instructional Technology/Educational Leadership at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU). In addition, he's an Adjunct Professor of Educational Technology at The University of Maryland University College (UMUC). Dr. Sponder is a former Peace Corps volunteer (Nepal), a trained Waldorf teacher and former head of staff of the New Age School in San Antonio, Texas. Previously, he was on the faculty of Kuskokwim College (Bethel, Alaska), The University of Alaska—Fairbanks and Nanyang Technological University (Singapore). He was an Alaska Writing Project Fellow (1984), a Christa McAuliffe Fellow (1988) and a Senior Fulbright Scholar (2003-4, Slovenia).

Barry began using distance delivery for instruction in 1978 as a Peace Corps Volunteer living in a remote Himalayan mountain village where he utilized English language lessons broadcast from Radio Beijing, Radio Moscow and The Voice of America. Since 1983, has been working with far--off students in both the USA and abroad, teaching over 80 distance ed courses--more than half online--using a wide range of synchronous and asynchronous delivery systems. In fact, each course he has taught has had a synchronous component using whatever consumer--level technologies are commonly available to students. Currently, he gives workshops and conference presentations on various aspects of Educational Technology and collaborates with public school teachers and administrators to facilitate the implementation of technology--enhanced classrooms and the development of technology proficient--teachers.

Over the past thirty years Dr. Sponder has developed and utilized several multimedia programs for teaching many diverse audiences while creating motivational materials for both flipping classrooms and for distance learning courses. Among his favorite projects were The Yupik (Eskimo) Language Multimedia Program for beginners, The Yupik Science Laserdisc and the Yugtarvik (People's) Museum Computer--Assisted Laserdisc. He believes that media and multimedia are simply tools of the trade and readily acknowledges that his most valuable technology is a pen, his favorite computer is the brain and his ultimate educational goal is mindfulness in teaching.