Discovery Education Speakers Bureau
Supporting the most effective use of technology in classrooms and schools
Supporting the most effective use of technology in classrooms and schools
Jocelyn Chadwick has compiled more than 30 years experience as a teacher, scholar, and writer. Spending the first ten years of her career as a high school English teacher, Dr. Chadwick went on to inspire young minds at institutions of higher learning in Texas. She recently held a position as a Professor of English at Harvard University in the Graduate School of Education and is a nationally recognized Mark Twain scholar. She has presented papers and workshops around the country and abroad; she has published two books, including The Jim Dilemma:Reading Race in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Dr. Chadwick, an expert on the issues of censorship and race in education, has spoken at the White House on the role of race, where she was joined by filmmaker Ken Burns, Connecticut governor John G. Rowland, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Justin Kaplan, and New York Times children's editor Eden Lipson. She currently serves as the Director of Assessment and Curriculum Development – English/Language Arts and social studies, for Discovery Education. . Dr. Chadwick reviews, recommends, and helps to prepare appropriate content for hundreds of thousands of teachers and students.
Jennifer Dorman taught social studies and computers for 10 years and was recognized as the Middle School Teacher of the Year in 2006 by the Pennsylvania Council for the Social Studies. Following her classroom teaching, Jen worked as a Staff Development Facilitator for the Central Bucks School District in Doylestown, PA, focusing on best instructional practice and technology integration. Jen was recognized as a Keystone Technology Integrator and STAR Discovery Educator in 2005 and as a Google Certified Teacher in 2008.
In 2008, the Pennsylvania Association for Educational Communications and Technology recognized Jen as the Outstanding Leader of the Year and she represented Pennsylvania at NECC in 2008 as the state’s nominee for the ISTE Leader of the Year Award. Jen has delivered keynote addresses and presented concurrent sessions and workshops at numerous regional and national educational technology conferences as well as in Second Life. She has provided testimony at state congressional hearings in Harrisburg, PA, and has been part of presentation teams who have worked directly with state legislators to impress upon them the importance of educational technology and professional development for teachers. Jen has authored articles for the Discovery Education Classroom Resource Guide and has been featured in Education Week Digital Directions and THE Journal. She has also been the featured guest on the EdTechTalk syndicated podcast, It’s Elementary. Jennifer Dorman is currently an adjunct professor and course designer for Wilkes University in the Instructional Media Masters Program and Manager for the Discovery Educator Network.
Jen blogs professionally at Cliotech and Dorman’s Trouvailles and she authors a best practices wiki, Grazing for Digital Natives, and a training Google Site, Google Tools for Schools.
Justin Karkow began his educational career as a first grade teacher in Raleigh, North Carolina. An adventurer to the core, he begged, borrowed and scraped together enough resources for each of his students to be able to benefit from technology on a daily basis. He then assumed the role of an instructional technology facilitator in Wake County, NC where he modeled effective use of technology to teachers and students. Before joining Discovery, Justin traveled the country sharing strategies for enhancing curriculum with digital media for the SAS Institute. Justin joined Discovery in 2008 as a Field Manager and now serves as the Discovery Educator Network Account Manager for the Southeast and Central US.
Justin has presented at NECC, FETC and the DEN National and Regional Institutes. Check out his blog at http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/justin_karkow.
Matt Monjan has blended technology and education for more ten years in the worlds of both business and K-12 instruction. Prior to joining the Discovery Education team in 2004, Matt designed, developed, and implemented adult education and certification programs for two of the largest trade associations in the country. At Discovery, Matt has worked with classroom teachers on the nuts and bolts of implementing technology and with administrators on using data from technology management to develop effective strategies for technology integration. He has pioneered innovative uses of often neglected features of technologies such as closed captioning. Matt has held Account Management positions on both the Digital Media Implementation and the Discovery Educator Network teams. He is based in Discovery Education's World Headquarters in Silver Spring, MD and manages the Discovery Educator Network activities for Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Delaware, New Jersey, and Washington, DC. Matt speaks across the county including presentations at local, state, and regional conferences, among them FETC, PETE&C, MASSCUE, Christa McAuliffe, VSTE and MICCA. He is currently the DEN Account Manager for the Mid-Atlantic Region.
Matt Monjan has blended technology and education for more ten years in the worlds of both business and K-12 instruction. Prior to joining the Discovery Education team in 2004, Matt designed, developed, and implemented adult education and certification programs for two of the largest trade associations in the country. At Discovery, Matt has worked with classroom teachers on the nuts and bolts of implementing technology and with administrators on using data from technology management to develop effective strategies for technology integration. He has pioneered innovative uses of often neglected features of technologies such as closed captioning. Matt has held Account Management positions on both the Digital Media Implementation and the Discovery Educator Network teams. He is based in Discovery Education's World Headquarters in Silver Spring, MD and manages the Discovery Educator Network activities for Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Delaware, New Jersey, and Washington, DC. Matt speaks across the county including presentations at local, state, and regional conferences, among them FETC, PETE&C, MASSCUE, Christa McAuliffe, VSTE and MICCA. He is currently the DEN Account Manager for the Mid-Atlantic Region.
Before retiring after 33 years in education as the Visual Literacy Facilitator for the Niles Township High Schools in Illinois, Joe Brennan served for 12 years as the AV/Media Coordinator at Niles West H.S. and taught Spanish for more than 20 years before that. He also coached soccer and basketball. Joe first became interested in educational video and multimedia because of his visual approach to teaching and coaching. That interest led to collaborating on the development of an interactive Spanish laser disc program for Encyclopaedia Britannica before leaving the classroom for the media position at Niles West. During his years in that job, the audio-visual department changed from a lending/consumption center to a creating/production area. In 2006 his district received ISTE’s national Sylvia Charp Award in part for the multimedia labs under his direction and in 2009 he received the "pink" jacket, Making IT Happen ISTE award. He was the Illinois Computing Educators' Technology Educator of the Year in 2003 as well as a semifinalist in Technology & Learning magazine's Ed Tech Leader of the Year program. Joe has been recognized by the corporate community as well; he is a STAR Discovery Educator and an Apple Distinguished Educator. He lives in the Chicago area with his wife, near his young grandchildren.
Scott Kinney is a tireless advocate and strong voice in support of the creative and effective application of educational technologies and digital content in America’s schools. With a rich background spanning from the classroom to the boardroom, he currently is the Vice President of Outreach and Professional Development for Discovery Education.
Kinney began his career as a Technology Specialist at the Central Columbia School District (PA), where he helped teachers integrate educational technologies into their classroom activities. Soon, he was named District Instructional Technology Coordinator for the Sharpsville Area School District (PA), where he worked with educators to create district-wide plans to
encourage the use of educational technologies in schools.
Kinney’s next role was as Director of Educational Technologies at the Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit (PA). During his tenure at the Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit, he founded and nurtured a new department specifically designed to support local Eastern Pennsylvania school districts in the effective integration of technology into curriculum.
In his current position at Discovery Education, Kinney serves as the company’s educational liaison for public policy, frequently addressing audiences around the world about the positive role educational technology can play in improving student achievement.
He has presented at numerous national education conferences, offering teachers classroom tested strategies for leveraging educational technologies and digital content to improve student engagement in learning. Conferences at which he has presented include the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC), the Florida Educational Technology Conference (FETC) including keynote presentations at the Center for Advancing Partnerships in Education (CAPE) conference, Virginia’s EdTech conference and the Maryland K12 Digital Library Summit.
In June of 2009, Kinney was invited to testify before the U.S. House of Representative’s Education and Labor Committee on the future of education in America. In his testimony, Kinney passionately called on all levels of government to accelerate their support for the use of rich digital content in schools.
Kinney is a frequent contributor to national education publications and has co-authored multiple articles about using technology as a tool to help differentiate instruction including: “Creating a Differentiated Classroom,” which appeared in Leading and Learning with Technology and “Teaching Every Child,” which appeared in the Discovery Education Classroom Resource Guide.
In addition to Kinney’s public policy and professional development work, he also oversees the Discovery Educator Network (DEN), a global community of more than 100,000 educators dedicated to supporting education through digital media and educational technology. Kinney has taught aspiring teachers at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, and is also the architect of an innovative partnership with Wilkes University, whereby educators across the nation have the opportunity to
earn a Master of Science in Instructional Media through a fully online, 30 credit degree program.
