About Us

Anna Toom USA flag
Dr. Anna Toom
is an Associate Professor of Psychology in the Graduate School of Education at Touro College, New York. She earned the first Master’s degree in Computer Science from MIREA (Moscow Institute of Radio-Engineering Electronics and Automation, 1972) and the second Master’s degree in Psychology from Moscow State University (1978). In 1991, she attained her Ph.D. in Psychology from Moscow State University of Management in Russia. After graduation, Dr. Toom worked as a university researcher and taught psychology from time to time. Teaching became her main vocation in the USA. However, she left the traditional classroom to devote her teaching and research to distance online education.
Dr. Toom says, “My primary scientific interest concerns learning in the virtual environment that is, based on information technologies. My pedagogical interest focuses on developing new methods to teach psychology. It seems that I succeeded to finally find the area where all my knowledge and skills, all my competencies unite.” Over the last ten years Dr. Toom has been creating virtual psychological laboratories where students study fundamental psychological theories and phenomena through the works of fiction and visual arts and in a dialogue with interactive computer programs. The current project is one more step closer to her goal.
Dr. Toom is the author of this project. She pioneered online practicums for studying Lev Vygotsky’s world-known theory as well as some other fundamental psychological and pedagogical theories. She adapted the text of Russian fiction story to Western culture. She designed the entire website, originated “machine” replicas for a man-machine dialogue, and applied a method for in-depth analysis of students’ performance.

Selected publications:
  1. Toom, Anna. (2008). Teaching Child Psychology on-line using Literature and Film Arts.In: Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education. P.p. 2847-2851. (In English)
  2. Toom, Anna (2010).Psychological concequences of love deprivation in childhood: Ingmar Bergman’s film Autumn Sonata. The proceedings of the 25th Intrernatonal Conference on Literature and Psychoanalysis. P.p. 179-183. Published by Superior Institute of Applied Psychology. Lisbon, Portugal. (In English, Portuguese).
  3. Toom, Anna (2012). Teaching Psychology Using Fiction and Informational Technologies. Conference proceedings for 2012 HKICEPS: Hong Kong, 2012. P.p. 418-426. ISBN 978-986-87417-3-7.
  4. Toom, Anna (2013). Integrative Education for the 21st century: Teaching Psychology Using Literature and Informational Technologies. US-China Education Review (A). 3 (5), 297-304. [ISSN 2161-623X, May 2013]
  5. Toom, Anna (2013). Virtual Psychological Laboratory: Studying Cognitive Development in Childhood with the Use of Literature. Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Education and Learning Technologies (EDULEARN). 1-3 July, 2013. Barcelona, Spain, Published by International Association of Technology, Education, and Development (IATED). P.p. 6316 - 6322. [ISBN: 978-84-616-3822-2].
  6. Toom, Anna (2013). A Study of Learning Motivation of Current and Prospective School Teachers in Online Psychology Classes. Proceedings of the Inaugural Asian Conference on Society, Education and Technology 2013. 23rd-27th October 2013. Osaka, Japan. Published by The International Academic Forum (IAFOR). P.p. 98-114. Article 0256. [ISSN: 2188-272X].
  7. Toom, Anna (2015). Students-Enthusiasts in Online Classes: Their Contribution to the Educational Process. The IAFOR Journal of Education. Vol. III – Issue II – Summer 2015. Ed.: B. Montoneri & V. Paliktzoglou. P.p.126-140. [ISSN: 2189-1036].
  8. Toom, Anna (2015). Teaching Leo Vygotsky’s Theory with the Use of Literature and Informational Technology. Proceedings of International Academic Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities in Prague 2015. December 30-31, 2015. Prague, Czech Republic. Published by Czech Institute of Academic Education. P.p. 60-76. ISBN 978-80-905791-7-0.
  9. Toom, Anna (2016). A Study of Students’ Representations of Their Virtual Classroom. Journal of Modern Education Review, USA. 6 (8), 859-871. [ISSN 2155-7993].
  10. Toom, Anna & Inshakova, Natalia (2017). Skills of Analyzing and Synthesizing Textual Information in University Students: Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Approach. Proceedings of the IAFOR Asian Conference on Education 2018: October 13-15, 2018. Tokyo, Japan. Published by IAFOR. P.p. 47-59. [ISSN: 2186-5892]. Retrieved on December 10 from https://papers.iafor.org/submission41251/. (In English.)
  11. Toom, Anna & Inshakova, Natalia (2019). A Study of University Students’ Cognitive Competence in Performing the Learning Assignments: Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Approach. Frontiers in Education Technology. Vol.2 (4). Doi: https://doi.org/10.22158/fet.v2n4p208. Retrieved on 07-20-2020 from http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v2n4p208
  12. Toom, Anna. A Method to Predict Students’ Success in Distance Online Courses. Proceedings of the IAFOR International Conference on Educational Research & Innovation ERI2019: May 06-08, 2019. Virginia, USA. Published by IAFOR. [ISSN: 2435-1202]. Retrieved on December 10 from https://papers.iafor.org/submission50910/
  13. Toom, A. & Inshakova, N. (2020). Failure to Observe the Rules of Citation by University Students as a Problem of Academic Ethics: Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Approach. In B. Montoneri (Ed.), Academic Misconduct and Plagiarism: Case Studies from Universities around the World (Chapter 12). USA: Lexington Books.


Ukraine flag Daria
Daria Bezborodko
is a software engineer. She earned her two Master of Science degrees in Information Technologies from Zaporozhe State University and in Software Development from Computer Academy STEP in Ukraine (2011). After graduation, Daria worked shortly as a teacher of programming and then as a project developer in computer companies. The projects that she participated in belonged to the areas of finances and education. Daria has eight years of experience in working with such technologies as ASP.NET, Java Script, C# and C++. She is Microsoft Certified Professional (2015). Since 2018 she has been leading the company NVCoding which participated in development virtual psychological laboratories. Daria’s and her workers’ contribution to this project was tremendous - they did all programming work.


USA flag Anton Toom
Anton (Onty) Toom (1975-2019)
was a software and quality assurance engineer. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from City University of New York (2003). After graduation, he worked as a project developer for computer companies of New York and New Jersey; then he started his career as a freelancer. The projects that he led belonged to the areas of computer science, management, and education. Anton had seventeen years of experience in working with C#/.NET, JavaScript, MSSQL, and many other technologies. He belonged to such a rare category of specialists whose competence went far beyond their formal education. To make virtual psychological laboratories functioning, Anton extended great effort as a consultant on web design architecture, computer-users interface, and data bases issues. We devoted this project to his memory.


Mary USA flag
Mary Patrovic
is a teacher of English. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in English from St. Joseph’s College (2011) and Master of Science in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) at Touro College in New York (2015). After working in the public schools for four years, she was hired by Suffolk County Community College where she teaches grammar and writing. When studying at Touro College, Mary was a student in an on-line class taught by Dr. Toom, and since that time virtual forms of teaching-learning became a subject of her professional interest. She says, “This type of learning will be the focus as school budgets continue to grow, teacher quality continues to diminish and internal issues with students get more out of hand.” It was the second project which she did collaboratively with Dr. Toom. For this project, Mary contributed her expertise as a translator and editor.


USA flag Sy
Cleoward Sy
is an illustrator of children’s books. He graduated from the University of San Jose-Recoletos in the Philippines with a Bachelor’s degree in Management and Accounting (2014). However, he did not practice accounting after graduation since he did not really enjoy that profession. He became interested in visual arts and started his career as a freelance illustrator. After he mastered artistic software, he performs his projects both digitally and traditionally. His portfolio includes more than ten books written by modern authors from around the world. Despite the frequent natural disasters and disruptions with the Internet in the Philippines, Cleoward contributed to this project a lot: he completed illustrations for the “Homepage” and “Practicums” as well as our portraits for this page.