headshot of light-skinned man with dark, buzzed hair and close-trimmed salt-and-pepper beard wearing dark-green open-collared shirt standing in front of brick wall Chris Friend Listening & Learning Teacher, speaker, and podcaster specializing in introducing newcomers to conversations around education, writing, and technology. Learn More
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Curriculum design, instructional design, document design, or audio editing? Let’s get to work.

Career educator with broad design skills can strengthen your team, sharpen your brand, or shape your classes.

Curriculum Development

Created two week-long seminars on critical digital pedagogy for general audiences and for Digital Humanities. Iterated four complete FYC sequences incorporating NCTE standards & CWPA outcomes, two sets of institutional standards, and fluid departmental expectations.

Professional Training

Designed three-course sequence to teach business writing to government employees, adapting to organizational precedent and incorporating disciplinary best practices.

Hybrid Learning Design

Research-based and practical experience designing and facilitating hybrid courses from small seminars to MOOCs. Adapts course design to needs and expectations of participants as well as institutional technology standards.

Digital Publishing

Experience working with a variety of publication platforms, including building anthologies of student research papers in LaTeX, maintaining WordPress-based class blogs, creating a Ghost-based digital scholarly journal, and hosting a podcast on WordPress and SoundCloud.

Latest Updates

A winged, horned serpent hovers between two purple aliens in separate cages. Yes, it's as psychotic as it sounds.
18 Jan 2021

How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth

Star Trek episodes follow a predictable pattern. They begin with a “captain’s log” and a stardate, usually with a shot of the Enterprise flying to or around some random planet. And because it’s episodic television, the captain’s log tells audiences about the episode’s context, and then we meet the Alien of the Week™ and begin...
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dark-haired woman in uniform smiles at the man (off-camera) playing trombone nearby
13 Jan 2021

Thine Own Self

The way one character teaches another to pass an exam provides a useful model for helping students develop independence: Restraint.
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Still taken from Star Trek episode, showing three Klingons in a dimly lit room. Character in foreground is smiling, accepting but downplaying acclaim from others off-screen.
11 Jan 2021

Once More Unto the Breach

Re-watching “Once More Unto the Breach” from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine brings to mind good teaching practices, leading to classroom balance.
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