About

Ludmila Smirnova is Associate Professor of Education at Mount St. Mary College in Newburgh, N.Y., where she has taught for the past 9 years. At the Mount, she offers courses in Curricular Planning, Methods of Teaching and Teaching with Technology and serves as counselor to Kappa Delta Pi, the International Honor Society in Education. She has become increasingly recognized for her leadership in the application of emerging Internet technologies to education. She has run numerous workshops on the application of Smart Technologies (e.g., Smart Board) and of Web 2.0 tools to the college and primary/secondary classroom.

Prior to coming to the Mount, Dr. Smirnova was visiting professor at Ramapo College of N.J. for two years. In her native Russia, she was professor of education at Volgograd State Pedagogical University, where she also served as Dean of the School of Foreign Languages. During her 25-year Russian career, Dr. Smirnvoa was known for her work in innovative approaches to teaching. She pioneered the reintroduction of Montessori education in southern Russia; a Montessori trainer in both the American and European approaches, she has run seminars and training programs for Montessori teachers in Russia and the U.S. Also in Russia, she played a key role in creating a model Ecological Gymnasium and other experimental “charter schools.” With her Ph.D. and Masters students, she additionally undertook a major program of comparative study on successful educational innovation; an interest that has continued after her move to the U.S.

Beyond the seventy books and other publications based upon her work in Russia, Dr. Smirnova has written for and presented to a growing list of professional audiences in the U.S. and abroad. Technology Enhanced Teaching and Learning for Student (and Teacher) Success was published based upon her presentation at the Faculty Resource Network conference “Defining Student Success” in San Francisco in November 2008. She has conducted numerous other workshops and presentations on Web 2.0 “Read-Write-Create” technologies, including Moodle and Smartboard training on line and in colleges, public schools and conferences in the U.S. and Mexico. This summer she presented virtually at the Association for the Advancement of Computing conference in Hawaii in June and in person at the International Association of Technology, Education and Development EDULearn09 conference in Barcelona in July, where she also chaired a session. She recently traveled to Russia and presented at the conferences in the south of Russia, in Volgograd and in Moscow at the International conference at the Open Humanitarian University. In the end of October 2009 she conducted a workshop on Moodle for teachers and students who came to biennial KDP conference in Orlando, Florida and gave 3 presentations in Czech Republic, in November, 2009.