Dr. Joseph South

Director of the Office of Educational Technology, US Department of Education

Bio Current as of August 26, 2016

Joseph South, Director of the Office of Educational Technology, has extensive experience establishing and scaling educational technology solutions in startup, corporate, non-profit, and higher education settings. He was most recently Senior Director at K12 Inc where he performed double duty as a strategic consultant on higher education initiatives while directing K-12 curriculum development offices in Utah and Oklahoma. 

He has pioneered online and blended learning solutions for institutions of higher education in science, foreign language, religion, and humanities. Working closely with Middlebury College senior leadership and faculty, Joseph led a multinational team as Senior Director of Product Development for Middlebury Interactive Languages, helping launch their first large scale online learning venture. While there, he led the development of a 3D immersive language learning role-playing game that earned a Serious Play Bronze Medal. He has also partnered with Gale Cengage to design and develop online world language and ESL courses for adults that have been distributed in public libraries throughout the country. Joseph has served as a strategic consultant and adviser to edtech startups, museums, and institutions of higher education.

In the non-profit sector, Joseph has led the development of interactive kiosks and online curriculum for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, has taught principals and superintendents how to use technology more effectively, helped develop and deploy computational science educational resources for public school students, and designed and conducted an internet science camp for middle school students that included a live chat with scientists working on the Mars rovers.

Joseph is a co-inventor of a patented dynamic continual improvement educational environment. He has led learning programs and/or consulted on projects in China, Korea, Mexico, South America, and the Middle East. Joseph’s peer-reviewed publications include a study of the use and view of theory by practicing instructional designers and the design of narrative learning environments. He holds a doctorate in Instructional Psychology and Technology from Brigham Young University.