Miguel Lara

2451 E. 10th St.
Bloomington , IN 47408

E-mail:

Summary
Over ten years of professional experience coordinating and developing sophisticated web applications and web sites using very assorted technology. The combination of master's degrees in Computer Science and Instructional Technology and Telecommunication has allowed me to acquire significant skills in the field of distance learning, specially on web-based instruction development. Oracle PL/SQL and Java Programmer Certifications. Quick learner and enjoy being challenged.

 

Professional Skills

Operating Systems: Unix, Linux, Windows 2000/NT/XP, Mac OS X
Languages: Java, C, C++, Perl, PL/SQL, Lingo.
Web related: JSP, ASP, PHP, Struts, Servlets, Java Beans, DHTML, XML, JUnit, HTTPUnit, Web services, Axis, SCORM, HTML, JavaScript, CSS, CGI scripts. Eclipse and Netbeans IDEs. Tomcat, Apache, Iplanet, and Sun ONE web servers.
Databases: Oracle 9i, MySQL, MS Access
Applications: Macromedia MX suite, Director, Flash, Photoshop, ImageReady, Visio, FileMaker, Alpha 5, MS Office, Frontpage.
CMS: Blackboard, WebCT, Moodle, Claroline.

 


Miguel Lara
Professional Experience

Instructional Consultant (July 2009 - Present)
Instructional Consulting Office. School of Education. Indiana University

  • My main tasks consist in consulting with faculty in areas of course design, technology integration, assessment and evaluation, and instructional innovations. Assist faculty and associate instructors in the development of course websites; digital video production; use of Oncourse; classroom presentations; course evaluations; and other instructional projects.

Professor (June 2008 - Present)
MBA Spanish Program. University of Phoenix

  • I'm teaching the online class MBAS/505 "Método Práctico del Aprendizaje" (Problem-based Learning). This is a six-week introductory course that all students must take as part of their MBA program. The course goals are to prepare students to suceed in the program by: helping them to become familiar with online learning, specifically using the UoP Online Learning System; explaining them how to use the digital library resources; getting familiar with collaborative learning teams to solve problems; and learning how to use the APA style in their papers.


Systems Analyst
(May 2006 - July 2009)
U.I.T.S. Indiana University. Bloomington, IN.

  • Worked on the analysis and development of different projects for the Human Resources department of Indiana University. Some of these projects include:
    • TIME: The Time Information Management Environment (TIME) system allows IU biweekly employees to report the time they worked on weekly basis. It also allows hourly employees to clock-in and clok-out using the TIME kiosks set up for such a purpose. The system is integrated with the IU payroll and workflow systems and it is currently used by around 10,000 IU employees.

    • FAR: The Faculty Annual Report system is intended to standardize and automate the annual faculty summary reporting process. Faculty will be able to use it to report their publications, honors, awards, creative activities, professional meetings, and service activities.

 

Project Manager/Analyst/Application Developer (February 2000 - April 2006)
C.A.I.T. Western Illinois University. Macomb, IL.

  • Working at C.A.I.T., I had the opportunity to perform different roles simultaneously on project basis. As a project manager I oversaw the development of projects and I was accountable of their on-time delivery. I coordinated teams composed of people with diverse technical skills such as web developers, graphic artists, content experts and application developers. My functions included: contact clients to gather information and feedback; produce time estimates about activities to be done; schedule periodical meetings; motivate and encourage team members to meet milestones; corroborate project's quality assurance before launching it; coordinate project's maintenance.

  • As analyst/application developer I collaborated in the development of around 30 dynamic web sites using Oracle, MySql, JSP, Servlets, Struts, and FileMaker among others. The nature and clients of the web sites developed was quite assorted and they include:
  • Shopping cart style web site for the Office Supply Store at Western Illinois University (http://oss.wiu.edu/)

  • Online library system for the Central Illinois Adult Education Service Center (http://www.cait.org/ciaesc/library/)

  • Online workshop registration and electronic portfolio for the Illinois Area III Professional Development Consortium (http://www.trackitpd.org)

  • Domestic Violence service directory for the Illinois Attorney General's office (http://ag.state.il.us/dvsa/)

  • Math and Science curriculum mapping for the North Central Regional Education Laboratory (http://currmap.ncrel.org/)

  • Geography online instructional site for the Illinois State Museum (http://geologyonline.museum.state.il.us:8888/dls/)

  • Nationwide Online GED system for the Department of Employment Security and the Illinois Community College Board (http://www.gedillinois.org)

  • Lesson plan database for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

  • Customized online classes for several undergraduate and graduate programs at Western Illinois University.

Web Developer (Part time position from July 2003 to June 2004)
College of Business and Technology. Western Illinois University. Macomb, IL
  • Developed web sites for the Global Education office and the College of Business and Technology using MySQL, PHP, Dreamweaver, CSS, javascript and Photoshop. I installed and configured MySQL and phpBB bulletin board. I designed the entire web sites, took most pictures and created all graphics included in them. The web sites include:
Internet Services Coordinator (July 1995 to July 1999)
Autonomous University of Querétaro, México.
  • Responsible of maintaining University of Queretaro Web Site (http://www.uaq.mx). For that end I coordinated a team of 3 student workers and supervised the development of all sections that composed the web site. I created guidelines to unify the look of the content. I used cgi scripts, plain text editors to create web pages and Paint Shop Pro.

  • Feasibility analysis and installation of Internet services such as web servers, ftp server, software to transmit audio and video through Internet, administration of Unix System specifically Silicon Graphics Irix 5 and Sun Solaris 5.6
Oracle Database Programmer (Internship from August 1994 to November 1994)
Mihaelo Pupin Institute, Belgrade. Serbia-Montenegro
    My work consisted in writing programs to generate reports using Oracle version 6 running in Unix Santa Cruz Operating System, handling SQL-Forms and SQL-report.

Education
  • Master of Science in Instructional Technology and Telecommunications. Western Illinois University (2005)

  • Distance Learning Certificate. Western Illinois University (2005)

  • Master of Science in Computer Science. Autonomous University of Queretaro, Mexico / Western Illinois University (1999)

  • Bachelor of Computer Science. Autonomous University of Queretaro, Mexico (1995)

Certifications
  • Sun Certified Programmer for Java 1.4 (May, 2005)
  • Oracle PL/SQL (March, 2001)


Language Skills
    English, Esperanto, French, Spanish