Ira Goldstein

I was born in the Bronx, grew up in Freeport, NY, came to the Capital Region to go to school, and never left.
My interests and experiences range from managing an information technology center, to photography (my 15 minutes of fame was actually 24 hours when one of my photographs was chosen as the Wikipedia picture of the day), to broadcasting, to camping, to driving a 1969 Citroen DS21. I try to use my experiences as examples in order to be able to demonstrate how the technology works in the real-world, showing how to apply a given topic in a meaningful way.

My Siena Experience

My Teaching Philosophy

I believe that it is my responsibility as a teacher to go beyond simply imparting facts. I believe in engaging students as partners in developing their learning experience. I believe that for Computer Science and Information Technology students to be successful, either in industry or in the pursuit of an advanced degree, three needs must be met: students need to be prepared to be life-long learners; students need to be able to apply what they learn in meaningful ways; and students need to be able to work both independently and collaboratively. Learning is not a passive experience. While relevance can help to motivate learning, the true test of success is a student’s ability to apply what they have learned. I have found that applying the student centered Problem-based Learning (PBL) approach to my classes not only allows students to demonstrate what they have learned, but also promotes the development of critical thinking, communication, teamwork, and problem solving skills.

What I Love About Siena

What I love most about Siena is that it is an open and welcoming community.

My Favorite Courses to Teach

That would be like picking a favorite student. They are all fun to teach.

My Professional Experience

Articles & Book Reviews

• Understanding Wi-Fi
  EDSIG Conference on Information Systems and Computing Education
  2022
• What! No GUI? – Teaching A Text Based Command Line Oriented Introduction to Computer Science
  Information Systems Education Journal, vol. 17
  2019
• Connecting Colleges/Universities and Local High Schools: A New Model for High School CS Teacher Development
  ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
  2018
• What! No GUI?
  EDSIG Conference on Information Systems and Computing Education
  2018
• A Mindful Approach to Teaching Emotional Intelligence to Undergraduate Students Online and In Person
  Information Systems Education Journal, vol. 15
  2017
• Mindfulness: Gateway to Teaching Emotional Intelligence Online. Poster Presentation
  International Symposium for Contemplative Studies (ISCS 2016)
  2016
• Design and Implementation of a Public School Government-to-Employee System
  International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance
  2012
• Does Negation Really Matter?
  Workshop on Negation and Speculation in Natural Language Processing
  2010
• Role of Preferred Terminology in the Classification of Medical Reports
  International Symposium on Computer and Information Sciences
  2009
• Specializing for Predicting Obesity and its Co-morbidities
  Journal of Biomedical Informatics, vol. 42
  2009
• Identifying Patient Smoking Status from Medical Discharge Records
  Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, vol. 15
  2008
• Three Approaches to Automatic Assignment of ICD-9-CM Codes to Radiology Reports
  Fall Symposium of the American Medical Informatics Association
  2007

Awards & Distinctions

• Upsilon Pi Epsilon
  Category: Service-Professional
  Computer Science Honor Society, 2017
• Leadership and Support Award
  Category: Service-Professional
  School Administrators Association of New York State (SAANYS), 2007
• Beta Gamma Sigma
  Category: Other
  Business Honor Society (AACSB), 2004

Books & Book Chapters

• Medical Data Privacy Handbook
  Springer
  2015

Presentations

• Workshop: Not Just Another List: Increasing Student Engagement Using Innovative Apps
  2021
  EDSIG Conference on Information Systems and Computing Education, Arlington, Virginia