Dr. Dan Kohen-Vacs is the Head of the Undergraduate Program at the Faculty of Instructional Technologies. He is a senior staff member of the faculty. Additionally, he is serving as CTO responsible for coordinating the technological courses as well as leading the development efforts exercised by the faculty.
Dan holds a Ph.D. in Computer and Information Science from Linnaeus University (LNU) located in Växjö, Sweden. He conducted his Ph.D. in the international research Center of Learning and Knowledge Technologies (CeLeKT) operating from LNU. His dissertation focuses on the design and development approach for deploying web and mobile applications to support collaborative and seamless learning.
Dan’s current research efforts at HIT focus on several topics including the design and deployment of educational and training environments enhanced by Humanoid Robots and other IoT devices. Additionally, he also focuses his efforts on research and development of systems supported by augmented and virtual reality. Last but not least, he explores efforts oriented to seek new opportunities in the field of Computational Thinking. There, he focusses on innovative approaches for fostering students’ personal development through experiences consisting of programmatic tasks combined with tangible computing. His overall efforts focus on the consolidation of technological innovations exploited to enhance innovative learning and training experiences offered as state-of-the-art educational approaches.
Dan actively participates in various activities conducted by international communities and research frameworks focussing on the mentioned research domains. He participated in several national and international projects including EU programs as well as in the German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development.
His overall efforts reflect an evangelist mission to seek and explore new opportunities, enhancing learning and training anywhere and anytime while leveraging innovative technologies for enhancing the state of the art pedagogy.
Dan spends his free time volunteering in various educational frameworks (for K-12) exercising their efforts on the national level. He enjoys practicing Aikido martial art as well as to rides mountain bikes. Finally, and most importantly, he enjoys to participate and enrich experiences shared with his members of his family as well as with his friends.