About

Hi! I’m Billy.

I’m an Instructional Designer based in the Bay Area of California. I’m a Project Assistant on the Education team at Creative Commons. I’m an advocate of open and am on a personal mission to see shared knowledge and smarter learning design improve the world. Technology is letting us look at education in a way like never before, both of which I am actively learning about through involvement in communities and networking with people who are making a difference.

My undergraduate work at UC Santa Barbara was in Sociology (BA, 2008) and my master’s level at the University of Hawaii in Educational Technology (MEd, 2012). A bit of a fluke, I joined the community around Open Badges project in March, 2012 as coursework in a Free/Open Source Software class at UH. The culture and sense of welcome in the open source community is infectious; I caught the bug and relocated to Silicon Valley after finishing my graduate degree.

I’m not the typical technology person. I grew up surfing and snowboarding in Southern California and had a brief stint racing lightweight motorcycles in 2008. I worked with special needs children for a few years and ran some after-school programs before two years serving as a tech teacher at an elementary school. Then grad school took over my life, which was OK because it was in Hawaii. Go figure.

I consult on technology solutions and design presentations/workshops from time to time. To see some of my work, please check out my portfolio page. I’m findable on the common social media platforms and attend conferences when I can.