My life mission: motivating, educating, and inspiring students to be fully engaged in the rapidly globalizing 21st century. In our increasingly connected and complex world, personal (and even our country's) success depends upon a global awareness and global engagement to meet the challenges of our time. Utilizing a variety of topics, technologies, and graphic mediums, I am absolutely passionate about providing the highest quality learning experience that will produce global citizens and leaders prepared to positively shape the future of the the US, and the world.
Professor Boyer’s photo-based treasure hunt takes geography students outside to raise awareness their university home, each other, and the outside world. “The idea of people just staring at a screen for 10 billion hours a week slightly troubles me,” says John Boyer,...
A few years after John Boyer began teaching world geography at Virginia Tech, a survey revealed that 58 percent of college-aged Americans could not locate Japan on a map. Sixty-nine percent could not find the United Kingdom.
Mr Boyer developed his online teaching techniques as demand for his courses grew over the past 10-15 years. Beyond making it possible to teach extremely large classes, Mr Boyer says the benefits of using technology in a flipped classroom like his are much greater: he...
Using his passionate demeanor to his advantage, Boyer addressed a YouTube video to King Abdullah, inviting him to come to Virginia Tech to talk about what is going on in the Middle East.
The “Plaid Avenger,” John Boyer, rounded out the second segment with an exuberant talk on “Reinventing the ‘Professor’” and how he sailed in Fall 2013 as a means to better understand the current generation.
Semester at Sea, an independent study abroad program that journeys to 16 cities in 14 different countries, offered Boyer the opportunity to be a participating instructor on their epic voyage, which Boyer gladly accepted. But since he doesn't retain a tenured status...
Any faculty member who wants to produce a video needs to really think about how they are coming across to their audience and what harm they may be doing to the image of academics with a poor production. In sharp contrast to Khan’s cool and matter-of-fact demeanor...
Now the Plaid Avenger has taken on another mission, one that may bequest a dollar or two from your bank account, but is well worth the donation: an iPad application for his Plaid Avenger graphic novel series.
Virginia Tech professor John Boyer has been called the Bill Nye of geography. He prefers his lecture classes to be massive — 3,000 students massive — and connects with students outside of class via technology. So when Boyer set about inviting President Obama to stop...
Why were stories on the flipped university classroom so rare this past year? With our upcoming course on Social Media and Technology Tools for Research in mind, we wanted to find a model that was actually leveraging tech tools in a way that was improving higher...
Today, we’d like to introduce you to John Boyer of Virginia Tech. Skype is one of the many tools Professor Boyer uses to teach a class of nearly 3,000 students! In addition to Skype, Boyer employs tools like uStream, Twitter, Facebook, Turntable, podcasts, his own...
In October, Myanmar's pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, got a quirky request on YouTube. A hyperactive instructor in a plaid jacket posted a video inviting her to do a Skype interview with his "World Regions" geography class at Virginia Tech.
The digital classroom is inevitable. That may have been the one point of agreement between all parties during last week's SXSWedu technology and education conference – but the consensus stopped there.
Ask and you will receive. It’s an old adage, but new technology is helping to prove it true, at least in the case of one college professor whose YouTube request to Aung San Suu Kyi garnered him a Skype interview with the Burmese leader. Professor John Boyer teaches a...
January 03, 2012
Twitter newbie Rupert Murdoch following fake account
As of Monday, the oft-controversial Murdoch was following a grand total of four people on the social networking site. One of them, at first glance, appears to be Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page. Except that it's not Larry Page but a parody account that's part of...
At a special screening at Virginia Tech of Bouncing Cats -- the inspiring documentary of one man's attempt to use the power of hip-hop for positive social change in Uganda -- Crazy Legs from the Rock Steady Crew and Abramz from Breakdance Project Uganda are reunited...
First two Hollywood actors, now a Nobel Peace Prize-winning heroine. From half a world away,Aung San Suu Kyi spoke with a class of Virginia Tech students...
