Speakers
Keynote Speakers | |
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Co-Founder, GSV Asset Management and GSV Advisors Michael Moe is Chief Portfolio Manager for the GSV X Fund and the CEO of GSV Capital.. He is the Co-Chair of Arizona StateUniversity’s Education Innovation Council along with the university’s president, Michael Crow. He is on the Advisory Board of Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), a member of the Board of Directors for the Center for Education Reform and on the National Leadership Council for Communities in Schools. Michael is also on the Board of Directors of Sharespost, an alternative stock market for private, emerging companies and ePals, the largest online K-12 community in the world. |
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President, Alliance for Excellent Education Bob Wise is president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia. He currently co-chairs the Digital Learning Council and chairs the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. As governor of West Virginia from 2001 to 2005, he fought for and signed legislation to fund the PROMISE Scholarship program and created the Governor’s Helpline for Safer Schools. From 1983 to 2001, Governor Wise served in the U.S. House of Representatives and as a member on the House Education and Labor Committee. Governor Wise serves on several boards including: the Public Education Network’s board of directors and the board of trustees of America’s Promise. |
Additional Speakers | |
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Vice President, North America, ITWorx Houssam Amer is responsible for the North American operations of ITWorx, a global company operating in the education and government markets. Since joining ITWorx in 1996, Houssam has played an instrumental role in the establishment and management of strategic partnerships for ITWorx in the education market in North America, particularly in the K-12 market. Before expanding to North America, ITWorx has been successful in implementing K-12 education projects in the Middle East and Europe. |
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VP and GM, Literacy Program, Benetech, Benetech / Bookshare |
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Director EdNET Insight Operations, Market Data Retrieval (MDR) With over 25 years of direct marketing experience in the education industry, Kathleen Brantley has held multiple leadership roles at MDR, including Director, Product Development and Director, Strategic Partnerships. Kathleen drove the development and launch of MDR's highly successful email marketing solutions suite and Web-based lead generation platform. In her current role, Kathleen is responsible for the operations of EdNET Insight, a decision support service that includes market reports and research and consulting services. |
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President, Digital Solutions, Capstone Digital Todd Brekhus is the President of Capstone Digital, and visionary behind myON reader, a personalized literacy environment. Before joining Capstone, Todd served as Vice President and CMO of PLATO Learning, President and COO of Learning Elements, and Education Program Director for MCI WorldCom, where he helped build and implement the Marco Polo program. Todd spent eight years in education as a teacher, department chair, and Technology Director, and has served on the Board of the Education Division of The Software Information Industry Association. At SIIA, he helped to develop the Innovation Incubator and Personalized Learning Working Groups. |
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Chief Marketing Officer, Professional Examination Service Frank Catalano develops and oversees marketing strategy and branding initiatives for Professional Examination Service (ProExam). A long-time industry consultant and analyst, he had worked with a variety of education technology and digital learning companies including Pearson, McGraw-Hill, Apple and MetaMetrics, and was a consulting Senior Analyst for MDR’s EdNET Insight service. Frank also spent four years as Senior Vice President of Marketing for Pearson's U.S. school and assessment businesses. Frank is a well-known speaker, author and media commentator. He writes a column for GeekWire.com, is a contributor to NPR/KQED’s education site MindShift and the edtech site EdSurge, and tweets @FrankCatalano. Frank is a two-term SIIA Education Division Board member in his third year as CODiE Awards emcee. |
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Board of Directors, Tutor.com Therese Crane, Ed.D, currently serves in various leadership capacities within the education industry, including as a trustee for the National Education Association Foundation, the Curriki Foundation, and the Western Governors University. She serves on the Board of Directors for Renaissance Learning, National American University, and Tutor.com. In 2003, she formed Crane Associates as a sole proprietorship, engaged in the educational technology consulting practice, advising educational technology companies in business strategy, marketing, and sales. Dr. Crane has been an executive for Apple, AOL, and Jostens Learning. eSchool News recognized Dr. Crane as one of the Impact 30 for educational technology. |
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Founding Principal, Arc Capital Development Kevin Custer leads Arc Portfolio companies Virtual Expert Clinics, the developer of AutismPro, and Kinderstreet, which provides management software for the childcare market. He took Brainium Technologies public through a reverse-takeover of Canada's seventh-fastest growing public company. At Infonautics, he led the creation of Electric Library, an Internet-based subscription service that grossed over $20 million in its first 30 months. The products of his companies have been installed in about 60 percent of the K-12 schools in the United States, with more than 10 million online users each week. Kevin has chaired both the e-business and the Education Division of SIIA. |
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Director of Business Development, PCI Education Publishing Bill DeBacker is responsible for leading third party relationships, non-traditional markets and international expansion opportunities for PCI Educational Publishing. Bill has over 25 years experience leading internal business startups and organic growth initiatives, business redesign and reorganization and opening up new business markets in multiple high-growth industries. |
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President, Academic Benchmarks Matt Doherty has led the growth of Academic Benchmarks to become the K-12 industry’s preferred provider of standards data and intermediary services. Before Academic Benchmarks, Matt served at a number of education technology companies in strategic and business development roles, including Spectrum K12, Blackboard, Education Capital Group, and The Princeton Review. Matt began his career in education teaching in the Boston Public Schools and in San Francisco. |
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US Education Chief Technology Officer, Microsoft Corporation As the first, national, and chief technology officer of Microsoft Education, Cameron Evans is responsible for shaping and executing Microsoft’s technology and National Agenda in US Education. As Microsoft’s Education Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Cameron’s principal work focuses on strategic, sustainable reform for schools and universities across the nation. Cameron is a member of Microsoft's Education Leadership Team and is its national spokesperson for STEM Education, school innovation, and transformation. Before joining Microsoft, Cameron was an education chief information officer (CIO), a district executive, and a US Air Force Veteran. |
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Partner, Corporate & Transactions Group, Dorsey and Whitney, LLP Jeff Fromm is a partner in the Corporate and Transactions Group of the AmLaw100 firm Dorsey & Whitney LLP, where represents growth-stage companies, product and service businesses, and investment groups. He has experience in the U.S. and globally with venture capital, mergers & acquisitions, joint ventures, licensing, executive compensation, and general corporate matters. He is a member of Kidron Opportunity Fund, a venture capital fund targeting global investments in a range of technology companies, and has also served as President of KnowledgeQuest Ventures, a financial advisory and management consulting firm serving the education industry. |
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CEO, Educurious Dr. L. Michael Golden, Ed.D is currently CEO at Educurious, a Seattle-based organization dedicated to creating the high school curriculum that American students need now for success in college, careers and life. His previous roles include Corporate Vice President, Education at Microsoft Corporation, where he led the company's global education business division, Senior Vice President, Strategic Planning and Marketing at Pearson Education, and Deputy Secretary, Pennsylvania Department of Education, where he set strategy, policy, programs, legislation, developed systems, and directed funding to make schools in PA more effective and efficient. |
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President, SkillsTutor Adam Hall’s former company Impact Education was acquired by HMH and merged with their SkillsTutor division. Co-founded by Adam in 2000, Impact Education continued a family tradition of more than 30 years of educational service. Adam's work with Impact, and subsequently, SkillsTutor, has allowed him to focus on his passion of empowering "at risk" and incarcerated youth populations around the country with basic academic skills to keep them in school and off the streets. He is presently focused on executing SkillsTutor's mobile learning initiative, which will expand the reach of SkillsTutor's diagnostic/prescriptive instructional model, making it truly anytime/anywhere. |
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Director of Sales & Marketing, Education Americas, DynaVox Mayer-Johnson Matthew Hausmann has more than 20 years of experience in technology sales, marketing, and strategy with seven years of experience in the education technology space. His previous roles have included Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at Apangea Learning and Vice President of Sales and Marketing at VLN Partners. Hausmann has focused on special education for one and a half years through his affiliation with Mayer-Johnson, and for almost 13 years as a parent. |
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Executive Director, CTB/McGraw-Hill Dr. Mark Heidorn's primary responsibility is leading CTB/McGraw-Hill's readiness for next-generation assessments, including the new Common Core Assessments. Dr. Heidorn has been responsible for design, development, and successful operations for numerous state and city large-scale assessment customers at CTB. In his previous role as Florida's K-12 Assessment Director, he was responsible for the creation of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test program. |
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President, RedRock Reports Dr. Jennifer House, Ph.D. is President of RedRock Reports, an education funding services company. A noted education market leader, Dr. House is a former teacher, reading specialist, school district administrator, and educational technology innovator. In addition to heading the Curriculum Department for the Cupertino Union School District in CA, she also led engineering education and marketing programs for Hewlett-Packard, managed K-12 marketing programs for Apple, and held executive positions with Tenth Planet, Classroom Connect, and other leading K-12 organizations. Dr. House also has served on the Board of Directors for the Software Information Industry Association, the International Society for Technology Education and the Association of Education Publishers. |
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Founder & Chairman, EduTone Corporation Robert Iskander is a global corporate executive who is passionate about changing the world by leveraging technology to improve the quality of life for all, with a special focus on education and medicine. Founder and CEO of VIP Tone, Inc. since September 2000, he is an entrepreneur with 25 years of experience in Information Technology. His prior positions include General Manager of Sun Microsystems Middle East from 1992 to 1996 and Director at Sun Microsystems, Inc. from 1996 to 2000. |
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President, Educational Systemics A long time educator, Michael taught Science in California where he also worked in developing the first set of Technology in the Curriculum materials for the State of California. In 1986 he joined Apple Computer's Classroom of Tomorrow (ACOT) research and development project. Michael left Apple Computer to pursue the development of a technology of his design that dynamically indicates the relationship between curriculum, curriculum standards, and instructional resources for which he received patents in 1998. As founder of Mediaseek Technologies, Inc. he laid the groundwork for many of the innovations in standards implementation and instructional resource integration that followed. He continued the development of tools for children and educators as Director of Education Business Development at N2H2 and VP and GM of Brainium Technologies in the following years where he worked on challenges associated with sustainable 1:1 computing in schools. Michael and his associates create lasting change in how we learn and educate through their work with corporations and educational institutions. They are presently leading and supporting the adoption by the publishing community of the Learning Resource Metadata Initiative, LRMI, under the auspices of the AEP, the Creative Commons, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. |
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Managing Director, Cherry Tree & Associates, LLC Chad Johnson is a Managing Director in the investment banking practice of Cherry Tree & Associates. Chad has a long and successful track record advising dozens of entrepreneurs in the sale of their businesses, and numerous public and private companies in the acquisition of complementary businesses. His previous experience includes building a successful software firm, managing corporate M&A, and working in a venture capital firm. Chad is a member of the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA), the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG), and the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). |
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President Chief Potential Officer, Full Potential Associates Michael has been in the education technology marketplace since 1985 developing and delivering technology solutions for universities, public and school libraries, publishers, and classrooms of all types. In 2008, Michael started Full Potential Associates which is a strategic consulting firm specializing in the blend between education, publishing, and technology. Before 2008, Michael spent over 15 years working in various capacities for Follett Corporation. Michael was founder of Follett Digital Resources and one of the chief architects of Follett Corporation's digital strategy. Michael is a frequent speaker and panelists at events ranging from SIIA and AEP events to the London and Frankfurt Book Fairs. |
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Senior Vice President, Business Development, Wireless Generation Judah Karkowsky leads Amplify's/Wireless Generation's efforts to build meaningful partnerships within education technology. The company is a leading innovator and developer of educational software that helps teachers teach and provides digital assessment, reporting, and data analysis tools to enhance instruction in grades PreK - 12. Wireless Generation also builds large scale educational data systems, designs personalized curriculum and provides technology consulting and other professional services for schools and districts. Karkowsky is responsible for enhancing these services and product lines and for finding new corporate growth opportunities for the company. He identifies ways to partner and collaborate with publishers, universities, and other organizations advancing PreK-12 learning. Karkowsky forges relationships that strengthen the company's role in the ed tech marketplace and contribute to improvements and innovation in the classroom. |
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SVP, Technology & Development, Scholastic Education Dr. D. Midian Kurland is a 30-year veteran of the ed tech industry. Currently he is Senior Vice President, Technology and Development for Scholastic Education where he manages product development for Scholastic’s technology-based web and enterprise curriculum products including READ 180. Earlier in his career, he held research positions at the Center for the Study of Reading (Un. of Illinois) and Bank Street College. Later, before joining Scholastic, he lead development projects at EDC, the Advanced Technology Group at Apple, Computer Curriculum Corporation and several Internet start-ups. |
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Executive Director, Assessment Portfolio, New York City Department of Education As the leader of the Assessment Portfolio team at the NYCDOE, Anne LaTarte oversees the periodic assessment program, student assessments for teacher effectiveness, assessment technology, and test design and development. As New York transitions to the Common Core Learning Standards, Anne and her team work to ensure that all assessment policy and resources contribute to preparing educators and students for a new set of learning expectations. Anne began her career as an elementary special education teacher in Washington Heights. | |
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Managing Director, Palm Ventures Harold Levy leads the education practice of Palm Ventures, a family office that makes early stage capital investments that have a positive and transformative impact on society. In 2010, US Education Secretary Arnie Duncan appointed him to the Committee on Measures of Student Success. In 2000, Mr. Levy was elected New York Schools Chancellor. During his tenure, he started the Teaching Fellows program, and initiated a math initiative that resulted in the largest one-year gain in standardized test scores. He has served as Executive Vice President of Kaplan, Inc. and as Director of Global Compliance of Citigroup, Inc. |
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CEO, BookRenter.com Mehdi Maghsoodnia has over 20 years of experience building great teams and operating both startups and public companies. Before BookRenter, Mehdi was SVP of products and services at CafePress, where he joined the team in the early days and grew the company to more than $130M in revenues. Prior to CafePress, Mehdi was SVP of products at Intellisync, which had 90% ownership of the mobile sync market before Nokia bought the company for $450M. He currently sits on the boards of FaceTime, Pbworks, and Fotomoto. |
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VP, Corporate Strategy, Business Development & Investor Relations, Scholastic, Inc. Jeffrey Mathews is the Vice President of Corporate Strategy, Business Development and Investor Relations for Scholastic Corp., where since 2003 he's helped define and execute the company's strategy in the dynamic educational technology and children's book markets. Before Scholastic, Jeff co-founded and built a 400-person local marketing and technology company, and was an engagement manager at the Monitor Group, where he worked with multinational clients to develop and execute market entry and new product strategies. Jeff has a Ph.D. in biology and began his career in academia, with teaching positions at Oxford and Harvard Universities. |
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Principal, Norwest Venture Partners Sergio Monsalve holds a variety of investments and board seats in companies serving the Ed Tech market. He began his career with Morgan Stanley, where he helped grow Portal Software into a successful company that was later acquired by Oracle, and cofounded Cymerc, which provided a hosted SaaS solution for small and medium businesses. As Director of the consumer electronics division at eBay, Monsalve grew the sales from $150 million to more than $500 million in gross merchandise. Most recently, he was Vice President of Product Marketing at Photobucket, which was successfully sold to News Corp. for $300 million in 2007. |
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Chief Academic Officer, Knovation (formerly netTrekker) Steve Nordmark is the Chief Academic Officer at Knovation. He has over 22 years of experience in research and development of custom software solutions, with over 17 of those focused on enhancing the opportunities of under-served populations in K-12 schools. His goal is to create dialog, collaboration and ideas around innovative uses of technology to help the child – no matter where that child is – reach his fullest potential because he has access to tools that will help him learn. As the Chief Academic Officer, Steve focuses on the future vision of educational technology to support personalized learning. He researches, tracks, and analyzes trends in learning sciences, interoperability and technology architecture foundations for next generation learning systems. |
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Senior Vice President, Kaplan Ventures Jason Palmer provides capital, management support, industry expertise, and access to global resources across Kaplan to help entrepreneurs grow profitable education businesses. At Kaplan, Jason has led three business units, including Kaplan Premier Tutoring, which serves over 5,000 U.S. high school students annually. Prior to Kaplan, Jason managed strategic partnerships and M&A at SchoolNet, and at Microsoft Education, where he was responsible for education product strategy. In addition, he founded three venture-backed technology and services companies in the 1990s. He currently serves on the Foundation Board for the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education. |
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CEO, Avant Assessment Mike Patterson, the CEO of Avant Assessment, drives Avant’s efforts to develop and deliver real-world assessments and evidentiary platforms. Prior to joining Avant in 2009, Mike spent ten years driving Northwest Evaluation Association’s development of assessment solutions for the education market. He currently sits on the Interagency Roundtable Testing Committee, and served as a committee member at the U.S. Department of Education National Educational Technology Planning Sessions in 2003 and 2004. Recently, he led U.S. delegates to meetings in China for the International Standards Organization TC232 learning services for non-formal education and training technical committee workgroup on language learning services. |
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President, Consulting Services for Education John Richards, Ph.D., is President of Consulting Services for Education, Inc. (CS4Ed). CS4Ed works with publishers, developers, and educational organizations in business development, strategic planning, market research, and developing and launching award-winning products. He is the author/editor of 3 books, over 60 articles, has been responsible for the development of over 1,000 educational products, and is currently Adjunct Lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. |
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Senior Director, Education Policy, SIIA As Senior Director of Education Policy, Mark Schneiderman represents SIIA’s member software and digital content developers before Congress, the Administration, state governments and other national stakeholders on education policies, programs, and regulations that impact technology at all levels of education. Prior to joining SIIA, Schneiderman was Legislative Associate for the Council of Chief State School Officers, where he represented the public officials heading each state's department of education. He serves on the executive board of the National Coalition for Technology in Education and Training (NCTET), and he previously served on boards of the KIPP DC/Key Academy charter school and the Committee for Education Funding (CEF). |
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Managing Partner, Academic Business Advisors, LLC Farimah Schuerman is a specialist in the business of educational technology. During her career, she has helped hundreds of education companies bring new products to market while ensuring that product quality is maintained at the highest level. Farimah has provided guidance in the areas of sales, marketing, product development, business development and many other pivotal areas. Farimah has been active within SIIA's Education Division the past few years; serving on the Education Board, as co-chair of the Postsecondary Committee and on the Steering Committee for the Ed Tech Business Forum and the Ed Tech Industry Summit, at which she has presented in years past. |
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VP, Strategic Planning & Partnerships, Follett Software Company Steve implements strategy across Follett Software Company’s K12 solutions. He is also responsible building relationships with technology and digital content suppliers and for identifying acquisition opportunities. Steve was instrumental in several of Follett's acquisitions. Steve has held various positions at Follett ranging from directing Follett Software's Product Management team to Corporate Strategy at Follett Corporation to leading many of Follett’s eContent strategies. Steve has over 24 years of experience in technology-related industries, 16 of which are in Educational Technology. Steve has served on the SIIA Education Board for 3+ years and was the co-chair of the Innovations Working Group. |
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Chief Economist, National Education Association Before working with the National Education Association, Richard Sims served as Policy Director for the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy in Washington; as Director of Applied Economic Research at the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia; as Chief Economist & Director of Taxation & Economic Policy for the Arkansas Legislature; and Director of the Office of Economic Analysis for the Kentucky Legislature. In addition, Richard served two years as the Senior Advisor to the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova. Dr. Sims has authored over one hundred publications on taxation, economic growth and regional development, and applied public finance. |
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President, North America, Time To Know LaVerne Srinivasan joined Time to Know in 2011, overseeing the interests of Time to Know in North America. LaVerne served as President of New Leaders for New Schools from 2007 to 2011. Previously, LaVerne served as the Deputy Chancellor for New York City Public Schools where she led the transformation of the Division of Human Resources into a strategic function in service of the district's human capital strategy. |
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President and CEO, Catapult Learning, LLC Stuart Udell is President and CEO of Catapult Learning, a leading provider of instructional intervention and professional development programs. Since 2009, Stuart has served as Chairman of The National Dropout Prevention Center/Network, part of Clemson University. Prior to joining Catapult Learning, Stuart was Chief Executive Officer of Penn Foster, which he sold to The Princeton Review, where he also served as President of Postsecondary Education. Prior to that, Stuart served as President of Kaplan K12 Learning Services and as President of the School Renaissance Institute, a division of Renaissance Learning. |
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Managing Director, DeSilva + Phillips, LLC Robin has worked on more than 35 transactions in the education sector since 1999, and has initiated or been involved in both US and international mergers and acquisitions activity. A number of Ms. Warner’s deals have been education technology transactions including the sale of Educational Tools, Inc. to Triumph Learning, a subsidiary of Haights Cross; and the sale of Renzulli Learning to CompassLearning (Marlin Equity Partners). Robin has also held key positions in publishing, including : Executive Vice President/Publisher at Golden Books andVice President of Marketing at Simon & Schuster for both their Adult Trade Paperback and Children’s Divisions. |
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Adjunct Professor/Consultant, St. Joseph's College Thomas D. Whitby is an Adjunct Professor at St. Joseph’s College in New York, where he teaches Secondary Education Methods courses and supervises student teachers. He is the founder of seven educational groups on Linkedin, the largest being the 3,000+ member Technology-Using Professors Group, and co-created #Edchat, an award-winning educational discussion group on Twitter. He also created the Educator’s PLN, a global Ning site, where approximately 11,000 educators worldwide share and collaborate daily. He has written about Social Media in Education for several national educational journals, including Learning and Leading: the Journal for the International Society for Technology in Education. |
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Director, Education Technology, Carolina Science Online Bruce Wilcox offers 25+ years experience in the K12 and post-secondary marketplace. He has led dialogue and developed market strategies for disruptive innovation in the education sector. He prior pushed the adoption of overall lower cost computing for K12 leading to the development of the netbook and subsequent slate form factor, and promoted the emergence of mobile learning as a new, potentially game changing technology that shifts learning to the learner and the opportunity for learning to be place independent. |
