The Natoma Group
Since 1997, Natoma has based its operations on the principle that a fluid group of motivated experts can accomplish more than a static organization that requires high overhead to support its top-heavy management.
In that period, Natoma has managed projects and contracts to provide strategic planning in healthcare, agriculture and education, database development, data entry and statistical analysis, user-interface design, training and train-the-trainer services, translation services, editorial services, monitoring and evaluation, impact assessment, and other forms of support to the widest imaginable range of development projects.
Current and prior collaborators and sub-contractors have included: Claudia L'amoreaux, education lead at Second Life; Meddie Mayanja, now at IDRC; Teresa Peters, Kickstand Consulting, formerly of bridges.org and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Simon Bachelor of Gamos, Ltd.; Sara Nadel, currently at the Kennedy School of Management at Harvard University; Melissa Dawe, now at Autodesk, and; others currently working for development agencies, charitable foundations and NGOs worldwide.
Edmond Gaible, PhD, Principal
Since 1997, Ed has worked on technology implementations to support enhance learning in schools and school systems, grassroots health organizations and microenterprises. Ed's research interests include low-power and low-cost computing for village implementations, gauging the impact of community information centers (CICs) across a broad array of social and economic outcomes, and identifying best practices in technology use in formal and informal education systems. Across his work, Ed emphasizes participation by all stakeholders involved in learning processes, and promotes active learning tied to relevant contexts as a means of building usable knowledge and “higher-order thinking skills.”
Until 2009, Ed served on the board of directors of Jhai Foundation; he is currently an advisor to World Links Arab Region. He is also an accomplished playwright, director and performer, with productions in San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland and Davis, California, and in New York and Berlin. In 2007 and 2008 he was a nationally ranked triathlete.
Claudia L'Amoreaux, Senior Associate
Claudia brings deep experience with new media technologies and education to Natoma. As Director of Education Programs at Linden Lab (’06-’10), Claudia advised universities, colleges, large urban school systems, small rural schools and national Ministries of Education on how to deploy the 3D immersive world Second Life for international collaboration, improved student engagement, and teacher professional development. She identified and developed emerging communities, facilitated public and private partnerships, and advocated successfully for more open social networking policy. Before joining Linden Lab, Claudia founded her own eLearning consulting company, providing leadership on Internet projects in the U.S., Brazil, Fiji, Europe, and the Middle East since 1985 in the areas of education, culture, and sustainability. For Natoma, Claudia is leading design and development of a project using low-overhead social-networking tools to provide teachers, students and lifelong learners with contextualized, fully supported educational content.
Associates
Amitabh Dabla, PhD
Amitabh Dabla has provided project planning and management, research, monitoring and evaluation and technical assistance to projects in the U.S. and India. Amit's experience encompasses distance-learning; the use of ICT to support collaborative learning; media-supported learning; poverty reduction--including youth employment and the provision of financial services to rural communities. His analyses have addressed e-governance, e-commerce, technology-related enterprise; and a wide range of educational-technology implementations. For Natoma in 2010, Amitabh is conducting an evaluation of EVOKE, the multiuser social-innovation game sponsored by the World Bank Institute, and contributing to the program evaluation of the Research4Life.
Lim, Cher Ping, PhD
Professor Cher Ping LIM is the Director of the Asia-Pacific Centre of Excellence for Teacher Education and Innovations and Director of International Partnerships at the School of Education in Edith Cowan University, Australia. He has led several large scale research projects that include the Effective Integration of ICT in Singapore Schools – Policy and Pedagogical Implications, Using WAP and GPRS Technologies to Support E-discussions and E-sharing, Gaming in 3D Virtual Environments - Exploring Communities, Student Engagement, Learning Objects and Cultural Settings, Digital Curricular Literacies, Improving the Quality and Quantity of Teachers in the Asia-Pacific and Using Digital Representations of Work for Authentic and Reliable Performance Assessment in Senior Secondary School courses. He has also provided consultancy services to the World Bank, World Links, UNESCO, Inter-American Development Bank, World Bank, World Links, Microsoft, ACER Computers, Asian and Australian schools and the Governments of Barbados and Oman. For a list of Professor Lim's publications, please visit his webpage at Edith Cowan University.
Fulya Sari, Cand. PhD
Based in Istanbul, Turkey, Fulya is a leader in project-based learning, teacher development, and the integration of technology and curricula. Her current research focuses on practical implementation of learning objects at the school level. In 2000, she designed and managed the award-winning Turkish education portal, Elma—among the first websites to provide students with real-time access to "homework help-desk" services.
