Yitna Firdyiwek

Yitna Firdyiwek is a retired Instructional Designer whose last position was with the Learning Design & Technology group in the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Virginia. Prior to that, he was with the University's Information Technology Services where he worked as Instructional Technology Advisor in the Scholarly Technology Group.

Yitna focused on the use of electronic portfolios for reflective learning and authentic assessment, and has published collaboratively on these topics. He also worked on designs  for learning management systems where he developed the "interactive syllabus project" to help faculty create integrated course sites.

Yitna has a PhD in Instructional Technology from the Curry School and two Masters, one in Linguistics (George Mason University) and one in Creative Writing (Brown University).

He is currently involved with a nonprofit charity group that supports higher education students in the humanities and social sciences in Ethiopia.  He is still engaged with teaching part time at the University of Virginia's School for Continuing and Professional Studies.

Yitna is a naturalized US citizen (native of Ethiopia), and lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.