Dr. Karen Billings, the principal of BillingsConnects, is a highly regarded leader in the education industry who for many years drove the strategic direction, programs and initiatives for the Education Division of SIIA as Vice President and Managing Director. She has 45 years of experience in the industry and in K-12 and higher ed classrooms. She has authored four books and numerous articles for education journals, and is a frequent speaker at education conferences. Karen, in her leadership role at SIIA, has been an invaluable advisor for edWeb.net beginning in 2009 when edWeb.net was a finalist in the Innovation Incubator awards. edWeb has benefited greatly from being a member of SIIA and from Karen’s wonderful guidance and support.
Michael Campbell is President and Principal Advisor for Forward Thinking EDU. Michael’s passion for improving education through technology and digital literacy has helped private and not-for-profit organizations create solutions that support the learning community. For over 20 years, Michael has held executive, marketing management and sales positions spanning the K-12, higher education, corporate training, technology and publishing industries. Michael has held leadership positions in sales and marketing with Acumen Partners, Learning Bird, Follett Software Company, ETA hand2mind, Pearson, Cengage and McGraw-Hill Higher Education. In 2010, Follett Software became edWeb’s first sponsor, of our Emerging Tech community, thanks to Michael’s vision and support. This first step launched edWeb on our path to success and has fostered greater collaboration throughout the education industry.
Laurence Cocco is a digital learning consultant whose goal is to actively promote and facilitate the transformation of educational practices through the design and implementation of 21st-century teaching strategies and learning environments. Formerly the Director of Educational Technology for the New Jersey Department of Education, he served on the Board of Directors for the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) and was recognized in 2014 as the State Leader of the Year. He has also been a member of Thirteen/WNET’s Educational Services Advisory Committee since 2006. A proponent of Game-Based Learning, Laurence co-founded Games4Ed to assist educators who want to incorporate gaming strategies into teaching and learning. Additional experience includes Principal K-12 Technology Consultant at Office Depot, Media Integration Project Director at Jersey City Public Schools and Senior Audiovisual Designer for Cosentini Information Technologies. Laurence has a M.A. in Educational Communication & Technology from NYU.
George DeBakey has been involved in international business for 35 years in the private and public sector. He helps educational firms expand and develop their business in the Middle East and other regions. His focus in the education sector includes K-12 schools, universities, and ministries of education. Previously, George has served as Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Department of Commerce and was the first person selected to serve as the Director of the Technology and Information Industries Office to promote exports of U.S. technology products. He began his career with Rockwell International. George lived and worked for more than six years in London, England and Cairo, Egypt, and was the founder of the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt. He currently serves on the Smithsonian Science Education Center National Advisory Board. George helped edWeb create our edGlobal community to explore education initiatives around the world, and helps spread the word about edWeb in his global travels.
Dr. Peggy George is a life-long educator who is an enthusiastic advocate for the use of technology to support learning. She lives in Phoenix, AZ and has had many many roles in education including principal, special education director, elementary teacher, university pre-service teacher education instructor and Professional Development School (PDS) program coordinator with Arizona State University. She hosts the weekly Classroom 2.0 LIVE webinars to support teachers with technology integration. She is a STAR Discovery Educator, a member of the K12 Online Conference Organizer Team, an organizer for EdCampPhoenix and a moderator for the Learning Revolution. Peggy has attended more edWeb webinars than any other educator and shares her learning generously with our global community. She has been a wonderful advisor on how to improve the experience of our edWeb members in our community and in our webinar programs. Follow her on Twitter: @pgeorge
Melissa Hodgson is a content area supervisor in Montgomery, NJ. For nearly two decades, Melissa has served as a high school teacher and building administrator in New Jersey secondary schools. Her area of expertise is secondary Social Studies curriculum and instruction. She is committed to increasing civic and classroom engagement among students. Melissa has a passion for helping teachers excel in the classroom by increasing engagement, facilitating effective professional learning, and establishing relationships that reach beyond the classroom. Melissa has been helping edWeb align our professional learning programs to educators’ needs and applying for state-level approval for our free edWebinars. Thanks to her efforts, edWeb has recently been approved for PD by New York, Massachusetts, and Texas. Follow her on Twitter @_MelissaHodgson.
Shannon Holden is the Assistant Principal at Republic Middle School in Missouri. He has been a high school and middle school teacher and administrator in Texas and Missouri for 20 years. He built the website, www.newteacherhelp.com, to help reduce the 50% five-year attrition rate for new teachers in the educational profession. Shannon speaks to college students, teachers, and administrators across the Midwest about classroom management, maintaining positive relationships with parents, instructional strategies that engage students, and implementing technology in the classroom. He is the host of the New Teacher Help and TechTools for the Classroom communities on edWeb.net where he has an enthusiastic cohort of edWeb fans. Shannon has great advice on how school leaders can use edWeb for personalized teacher PD. Follow him on Twitter @newteacherhelp.
Kathy Hurley is co-founder and CEO of Girls Thinking Global, a nonprofit dedicated to the empowerment and education of girls and young women worldwide. Most recently, Kathy held the position of Executive Vice President Education Alliances, for the Pearson Foundation, and is a 40+ year veteran of the education industry. Kathy is based in Washington, D.C., and along with Priscilla Shumway, recently co-edited their first book, Real Women, Real Leaders, featuring 24 women who are top leaders in their field. Kathy Hurley and Deb DeVries, co-founders of Girls Thinking Global, have launched a community on edWeb to support women and girl’s leadership and education. edWeb is proud to be a predominantly women-run organization in edtech, so we are delighted to host this community on edWeb.
Rachel Langenhorst is a K-12 Technology Integrationist and Instructional Coach in Rock Valley, Iowa and she also serves as an adjunct professor for Northwestern College. A 20+ year teaching veteran, Rachel presents throughout the Midwest, focusing on technology integration strategies and best practices. She serves as a contributor for Mackin Educational Resources, edWeb.net, and Education Talk Radio. Rachel has been an invaluable advisor to edWeb on creating personalized professional learning programs that motivate and inspire educators. Learn more about how she uses edWeb as part of her Rocket University professional learning program. Find Rachel on Twitter @rlangenhorst and on her blog at Tech from the Trenches.
Peter Long is CEO of MCH Strategic Data and has over 30 years of experience in education marketing, database analytics, sales management, leadership and entrepreneurship. MCH is a leader in education data and marketing services for the preK-12 community. Peter is the third generation of his family to run MCH, a leader in the industry for 80 years. Prior to joining MCH, Peter worked for Coopers & Lybrand. Peter is a member of many professional associations including Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO), Direct Marketing Association (DMA), Entrepreneurial Exchange and Helzberg Mentoring Program. edWeb.net formed a partnership with MCH in 2009 that has been key to our growth. We are incredibly thankful to Peter for his commitment to help the education community collaborate to improve teaching and learning.
Michelle Luhtala is the Library Department Chair at New Canaan High School in Connecticut and was one of five school librarians named as a “Mover and Shaker” by Library Journal in 2015. She is the winner of the 2011 “I Love My Librarian” Award and the Library Association’s 2010 Outstanding Librarian Award. The New Canaan High School Library won AASL’s National School Library Program of the year in 2010. Michelle and edWeb founder, Lisa Schmucki, met at a CoSN conference in 2010 and worked together to launch edWeb’s first professional learning community, Emerging Tech for School Librarians. Together, they created a model for integrating online community with engaging webinars that provide continuing education certificates for participants. The community now has over 10,000 members. edWeb has created over 60 professional learning communities on this same successful model. Follow her on Twitter @mluhtala.
Holbrook Mahn is a Professor in the department of Language, Literacy, & Sociocultural Studies at the University of New Mexico, where he has been teaching for 20 years. Prior to that, he was a high school English as a Second Language teacher in Los Angeles. His main teaching responsibilities have focused on helping to prepare teachers to educate culturally and linguistically diverse students, particularly in second language literacy. For the last two decades he has written extensively about the work of Vygotsky. Holbrook uses edWeb for his doctoral seminars to help his students collaborate and comment on each others work and has started a community for students studying Vygotsky around the world to collaborate via edWeb. He has helped us add new features to edWeb so we can continually evolve to meet the needs of educators. Learn how Holbrook uses edWeb for his higher education seminars.
Eric Sheninger a Senior Fellow and Thought Leader on Digital Leadership with the International Center for Leadership in Education. As the award-winning principal of New Milford High School, Eric oversaw the successful implementation of several sustainable change initiatives that radically transformed the learning culture at his school while increasing achievement. His efforts to implement technology as a mechanism for transforming teaching, learning, and community engagement has led to the formation of the Pillars of Digital Leadership, a framework for all educators to initiate sustainable change to transform school cultures. Eric is the author of Digital Leadership: Changing Paradigms for Changing Times and Uncommon Learning: Creating Schools that Work for Kids. Eric helped edWeb to found our Leadership 3.0 community for principals and school leaders. Eric has tapped the most innovative school leaders to present webinars that help spread innovative practices particularly around the use of social media in schools as a positive force for communication. Follow Eric on Twitter @E_Sheninger.
