Katherine Milton, PhD
Katherine Milton’s experience in instructional design, writing, and arts administration spans more than two decades. She has worked in the digital arena since 1989, producing both print and interactive media including CD ROM/DVD development, course design, website design, and project & artist development.
Specializing in educational media, she has worked extensively with multi-disciplinary artists, developing culture-specific educational materials for classroom teachers that both demonstrate thematic constructs towards teaching cultural information, as well as integrating the art-making process into the standard curriculum. Her workshops focusing on e-learning and online content delivery strategies have been hosted internationally with sponsorship from such organizations as the European Commission for the Arts, and the British Council of Morocco. As a course developer she has crafted learning modules using a variety of LMS packages including FirstClass, Blackboard, Moodle, WordPress, and HAIKU, as well as realtime video tools such as iVisit, WebEx, and GoToMeeting.
Dr. Milton completed her undergraduate studies in Cultural Anthropology, focusing on the African Diaspora, at DePaul University, Chicago. She holds a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from the College of Education at Arizona State University focusing on Educational Media and Computers, and a research affiliation at the SmartLab Centre of the University College, Dublin. Her doctoral research focused on the emergence of peer-leadership in text-based, online learning communities, and the emergent phenomenon of “cognitive haunting.” She has conducted research in a variety of online worlds including iVisit, EverQuest, World of Warcraft and Second Life, and has taught online since 1997. She is coauthor/editor with Dr. Lizbeth Goodman of A Guide to Good Practice In Collaborative Working Methods and New Media Tools Creation.
In 2004, Dr. Milton began a 6-year term as the founding director of The Aesthetic Technologies Lab of Ohio University’s College of Fine Arts – a center for interdisciplinary research and collaboration at the frontiers of fine arts practice, curriculum development, and digital leadership. Under her directorship “The @ Lab” has provided a home for projects and artists seeking a nurturing creative environment, and state of the art facilities, and has been the birthplace of projects that have garnered international acclaim for both Ohio University and the artists associated with the Lab, including 2010 TED Fellow, Angelo Vermeulen (BIOMODD); Venice Biennale artist Suguru Goto (NETbody); international digital artist Philip Mallory Jones (In the Sweet Bye and Bye in Second Life); and Eisner nominee and GLYPH awardee, Joshua Dysart (graphic novel: The Unknown Soldier.) She has also provided critical funding, networking, and technical support to OU-based faculty and students, enabling their independent projects to grow and flourish, at the same time as participating in cross-institutional collaborative grant projects that strengthen both the lab and its ability to serve others.
Turning her focus to emerging practices in museum education, Dr. Milton served key leadership roles at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts starting in 2010 including Director of the museum’s division of Learning and Innovation where she spearheaded initiatives supporting digital learning, community arts, artist development, and cross-institutional collaborative programming. Dr. Milton currently serves as the Senior Instructional Designer for the State of California, where she is a project manager, designer, and developer of interactive training tools.
contact: katherine[@]phdiva.net
Katherine Milton, PhD 