Featured Speakers
Monday, July 30, 2012
Will Richardson A parent of two school aged children, Will Richardson has been thinking and writing about the intersection of social online learning networks and education for the past 10 years at Weblogg-ed.com and in numerous journals and magazines such as Ed Leadership, Education Week and English Journal, and most recently at willrichardson.com. He is an outspoken advocate for change in schools and classrooms in the context of the diverse new learning opportunities that the Web and other technologies now offer. He is a former public school educator for 22 years, and is a co-founder of Powerful Learning Practice (plpnetwork.com), a unique professional development program that has mentored over 5,000 teachers worldwide in the last five years.
His first book, "Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms" has sold over 80,000 copies and has impacted classroom practice around the world. Will's second book, "Personal Learning Networks: Using the Power of Connections to Transform Education," was released in May, 2011. His third book, a collection of blog posts titled "Learning on the Blog," was published in August of 2011. Over the past six years, he has spoken to tens of thousands of educators in over a dozen countries about the merits of online learning networks for personal and professional growth.
He is a national advisory board member of the George Lucas Education Foundation, and a regular columnist for District Administration Magazine.
David Conley
Dr. David Conley serves as chief executive officer of the Educational Policy Improvement Center (EPIC); founder and director of the Center for Educational Policy Research (CEPR); and Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Oregon. He conducts research on issues related to college readiness, college and high school course content analysis, high school-college alignment and transition, and large-scale diagnosis and assessment of college readiness. His findings have been published in numerous journal articles, technical reports, conference papers, book chapters, and books, including College Knowledge (2005). His most recent publication, College and Career Ready (2010), features case profiles of America's most college-ready high schools, helping to inform policy-makers, administrators, teachers, parents, and students how they can develop a culture rooted in postsecondary success.
Dr. Conley serves on numerous technical and advisory panels (including the Common Core State Standards Validation Committee, which he co-chaired), consults with educational agencies nationally and internationally, and is a frequent speaker at national and regional meetings of education professionals and policymakers.
Dr. Conley received a BA with honors in Social Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley and earned his master's and doctoral degrees at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Sara Hallermann
As a National Faculty Member with Buck Institute for Education, Sara supports school districts across the United States in implementing project based learning. Sara also serves as a 21st Century Skill rubric consultant for EdLeader21. Sara's teaching and educational leadership experience includes service in elementary, middle school, and high school settings. Sara recently co-authored PBL in the Elementary Grades, a how-to book designed for teachers that contains classroom-tested advice, step-by-step guidance, tips from experienced practitioners, and project based learning planning tools. Sara holds undergraduate degrees in Elementary and Special Education and a Master's Degree in Educational Leadership. Her passions include authentic literacy and differentiating instruction.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
W. James Popham
W. James Popham has spent the bulk of his educational career as a teacher. His first teaching assignment was in a small eastern Oregon high school where he taught English and social studies. Most of Dr. Popham's teaching career took place at UCLA where, for nearly 30 years, he taught courses in instructional methods for prospective teachers as well as courses in evaluation and measurement for graduate students. At UCLA he won several distinguished teaching awards. In January 2000, he was recognized by UCLA Today as one of UCLA's top 20 professors of the 20th century.
Dr. Popham has authored over 25 books, 200 journal articles, 50 research reports, and 175 papers presented before research societies. His most recently published books are Classroom Assessment: What Teachers Need to Know, 3rd Ed. (2002); Modern Educational Measurement: Practical Guidelines for Educational Leaders, 3rd Ed. (2000); Testing! Testing! What Every Parent Should Know About School Tests (2000), all published by Allyn & Bacon; and The Truth About Testing: An Educator's Call to Action (2001), published by ASCD.
In 1978, Dr. Popham was elected to the presidency of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). He was also the founding editor of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, a quarterly journal published by AERA. He has attended each year's AERA meeting since his first in 1958. He is inordinately compulsive. In 1968, Dr. Popham established IOX Assessment Associates, an R&D group that formerly created statewide student achievement tests for a dozen states. He has personally passed all of those tests, largely because of his unlimited access to the tests' answer keys. In 2002 the National Council on Measurement in Education presented him with its Award for Career Contributions to Educational Measurement.
Robyn Jackson
Robyn Jackson earned her Ph.D in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Maryland. In her work with teachers, administrators, schools and non-profit organizations, Dr. Jackson focuses on key principles of education rather than isolated strategies. Dr. Jackson founded Mindsteps Inc. in 2006 to help teachers learn how to help every students meet or exceed rigorous learning standards. Her work with administrators helps them effectively train and support teachers and create highly rigorous school programs that ensure equitable access to college readiness for all students. She also works with school systems and non-profits to remove institutional barriers to equity, access and rigor for all students; particularly students of color who are traditionally under-represented in advanced courses.
Her latest book is "Never Work Harder Than Your Students."
Her unique approach to professional development shows teachers how to create units that meet the learning needs of every student in the classroom, supporting struggling students without sacrificing rigor. Using these principles, she helps teachers and school leaders discover for themselves how best to meet the challenges they face.
Mark E. Weston has spent the past 36 years working to enhance education for all students. During that time, he served in key positions at Dell Inc., Apple Computer, Education Commission of the States, USDOE, US House of Representatives, National Conference of State Legislatures; and several school districts in Iowa. Mark advises leaders about education, ICT, and public policy strategies. He has consulted with 7 countries, 42 state legislatures, the United States Congress, dozens of companies, and hundreds of school districts.
Recently Mark contributed to groundbreaking education technology initiatives in Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York City, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia. Of special note is Mark’s leadership in the partnership between Governor Angus King, the State of Maine, and Apple through which every seventh and eighth-grade student in Maine is receiving a laptop computer, an initiative subsequently replicated by jurisdictions throughout.
He is co-author of The Learning Edge: What Technology Can Do to Educate All Children.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Ken O'Connor
B.A. (Hon), 1965; Dip. Ed. 1966, University of Melbourne; M.Ed., 1973, University of Toronto.
Ken has been an independent consultant from 1996 to the present. He has been a staff development presenter and facilitator on assessment, grading and reporting in 42 states and 9 Canadian provinces and 13 countries outside North America. He has presented at many conferences in Canada and the U.S.A., including the ETS/ATI Summer Institute, (1996 and 1997 to 2010), ETS Grading Conferences (2006 to 2009), NSDC Annual Conference (2002), ASCD Annual Conferences (1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2003 and 2005.), NASSP Annual Conference (2001), and ASCD Teaching and Learning Conferences in Nashville, in October, 1998, in Tampa, in October, 2000, and in New Orleans in October, 2002. He also was a keynote presenter at the EARCOS Teachers Conference in Bangkok in March 2003, and an institute presenter at AISA conferences in October 2005, and October 2007, and at the NESA Fall Conference in Bahrain in November 2006, and the NESA Teachers Conference in Bangkok in April 2007. He has also presented at a number of Solution Tree conferences including the Assessment Summits in Atlanta in October 2007, and 2008. He was a member of the ASCD Faculty and the ASCD Understanding by Design cadre.
His twenty-three year teaching career included experience as a geography teacher and department head at L'Amoreaux C.I. and Maplewood High School in Scarborough, Ontario (1976-90) and teaching at four schools in Toronto and Melbourne, Australia (Grade 7-12) starting in 1967.
Karen Cator
Karen Cator is the Director of the Office of Educational Technology at the U.S. Department of Education. She has devoted her career to creating the best possible learning environments for this generation of students. Prior to joining the department, Cator directed Apple's leadership and advocacy efforts in education. In this role, she focused on the intersection of education policy and research, emerging technologies, and the reality faced by teachers, students and administrators.
Cator joined Apple in 1997 from the public education sector, most recently leading technology planning and implementation in Juneau, Alaska. She also served as Special Assistant for Telecommunications for the Lieutenant Governor of Alaska. Cator holds a Masters in school administration from the University of Oregon and Bachelors in early childhood education from Springfield College. She is the past chair of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills and has served on the several boards including the Software & Information Industry Association—Education.
Jim Blascovich
Jim is a professor of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He earned his B.S. in psychology at Loyola University of Chicago (1968) and Ph.D. in social psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno (1972). Dr. Jim is a past President of both the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc (Div. 8 of APA), and the Society of Experimental Social Psychology. He is a Member of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research, a Charter Fellow of the American Psychological Society, and a Fellow of the American Psychological Association. He was a recipient of the Gordon Allport Intergroup Relations Prize in 2007. He was a awarded the Inaugural Australasian Social Psychology Society/Society of Personality and Social Psychology Teaching Fellowship (2002), and Erskine Fellowship (2005) at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand.He has served on several National Research Council panels and numerous editorial boards. His research has been continuously funded by the National Science Foundation for more than 20 years and has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Army Research Laboratory, and other agencies.
Blascovich held academic positions at the University of Nevada, Reno (72-73), Marquette University (73-80), and SUNY at Buffalo (80-95) before coming to UCSB. He directs the Research Center for Virtual Environments and Behavior.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Kristin Kipp
2011 National Online Teacher of the YearOnline Video Profile
Kristin Kipp was named the 2011 National Online Teacher of the Year by the Southern Regional Educational Board (SREB) and the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL). She has presented at webinars and conferences across the country, sharing best practices in teaching online.
Kristin is an English teacher for Jeffco’s 21st Century Virtual Academy in Golden, Colorado.
She has taught eighth through twelfth grades,
both virtually and in a face to face classroom.
Ricardo LeBlanc-Esparza is a school change coach at the Center for Secondary School Redesign in West Warwick, Rhode Island. With twenty-nine years of experience in high-poverty schools, Ricardo has been an alternative high school principal, high school principal, assistant principal, athletic director, teacher, and coach.
When Ricardo began serving as principal of Granger High in the state of Washington, the school had a 30 percent graduation rate and the community had the highest reported crime rate in the region. By developing a team approach that involved parents, students, educators, and the community working toward a common goal, he helped Granger High achieve a 90 percent graduation rate, and the crime rate in the community decreased.
Heather Singmaster is a Senior Program Associate in the Education Department at Asia Society where her work focuses on district, state, and national policy as well as international benchmarking. She previously worked at the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Office of the United States Trade Representative.
Heather holds a Masters degree focused in Anthropology from New York University and a Bachelors degree in International Affairs from George Washington University.
Publications include “Lifting Standards for All” in The South China Morning Post, Ready for the World: Preparing Elementary Students for the Global Age, Putting the World into World-Class Education: State Innovations and Opportunities, Going Global: Preparing Our Students for an Interconnected World, and “International Education and the Early Language Classroom” in Learning Languages.
Friday, August 3, 2012
Jack Berckemeyer
A nationally recognized presenter, author, as humorist, Jack began his career as a middle school teach in Denver, CO. After two years of teaching, After two years of teaching, he was named as an outstanding educator at his school, and shortly thereafter, he was identified as one of the outstanding educators in his district. Jack brings energy, humor, and expertise of the middle level adolescent to all staff development as he helps teachers and administrators remember why this job makes a difference.
Jack is currently the Director of Professional Development for Incentive Publications. Jack presents in conference and school district settings both nationally and internationally.
Sara Kajder
Sara is an assistant professor at Virginia Tech whose teaching has been anchored in assisting middle and high school students to connect out of school literacies with in school literacies - including helping students create multimodal texts (like blogs and digital stories), communicate their meaning-making through podcasts, and engage in web 2.0 learning spaces like wikis, twitter, and other tools. Regardless of the tool(s) we use, Kajder focuses on the uses of new literacies to affirm the literacies students bring into our classrooms, to produce knowledge and to put students' knowledge to work. Recipient of the National Technology Leadership Fellowship, she is the author of "Adolescents and Digital Literacies: Learning Alongside Our Students" (NCTE, 2010), "Bringing the Outside In" (Stenhouse, 2006) and "The Tech Savvy English Classroom" (Stenhouse, 2004).
Andrew Miller
Andrew has taught a variety of subjects in both online and the brick and mortar setting. He currently serves on the National Faculty for the Buck Institute for Education and ASCD. He travels internationally, training educators in his many areas of expertise including project-based learning, game-based learning, educational technology, and culturally-responsive teaching. He has presented at a variety of conferences and organizations including the National Association for Multicultural Education, National Council of Teachers of English, and iNACOL’s Virtual Schools Symposium.
Andrew is an avid blogger for a variety of organizations including edReformer, ASCD, Edutopia, and the education section of the Huffington Post. Andrew also frequents as a facilitator and participant in twitter #pblchat.