Amanda LaTasha Armstrong earned her master’s degree in child development with a specialization in administration from Erikson Institute. Currently, she is a doctoral candidate at New Mexico State University (NMSU) in the College of Education’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction. Her research interests include the intersection of early childhood, learning design and technology, and issues of culture and diversity. She is also NMSU’s Learning Games Lab coordinator, where she leads user-testing sessions and teaches summer sessions focused on game design and evaluation with youth.
In addition to her own research and her work at the Games Lab, Amanda is a contributing writer for Edutopia and Britannica for Parents, a founding member of KidMap, an active member of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), and a member of Britannica Early Learning Advisory Council. She was recently a member of the Technical Working Group to refresh the ISTE Standards for Educators released in 2017. Before coming to NMSU in 2015, Amanda conducted quantitative and qualitative research with Erikson’s Early Math Collaborative and was the program coordinator at the Technology in Early Childhood (TEC) Center at Erikson Institute. In order to maintain a life balance with her professional endeavors, she practices and teaches yoga, goes on 5K runs, takes hikes, and engages in creative activities.