Workshop Presenters, Summer Institute in Digital Literacy 2015

We are so proud to feature these amazing presenters at the

2015 Summer Institute in Digital Literacy, July 26 - 31 in Providence, Rhode Island.

Lauren Barack is a journalist and editor who has written about flea markets in Kiev, protests in New York, fishermen in St. Petersburg, and new media launches in London. Also trained as a filmmaker, Lauren has produced, edited, appeared on camera, and written for networks including VH1, Comedy Central, TNT and MTV. She's a contributing editor to School Library Journal, and her work has appeared in Newsweek, Wired, Parenting and other publications. A graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, with a Masters in Journalism from the University of California at Berkeley, Lauren won the Loeb Award in 2009 for her MSN Money series, "Middle Class Crunch," earned a Pace Foundation Fellowship in robotics, and an Associated Press Television and Radio Association scholarship while in graduate school.

Jillian Belanger is the Coordinator of English Language Learner Education at the RI Department of Education. As her Twitter bio will tell you, she also moonlights as a doctoral student at the University of Rhode Island’s English program with a specialization in Rhetoric and Composition, with research interests in the rhetorical power of humor, specifically around stand-up comedians as rhetors. Before coming to URI for her Ph.D., Jillian completed her M.A. in ESL and Cross Cultural Studies at Brown University and earned National Board certification in Adolescent ELA. She also taught high school English and then ELL in Providence for ten years and college writing at Roger Williams University for two. Having recently completed URI’s graduate certificate in digital literacy, she’d be happy to talk to you about it if you’re on the fence! (She will tell you that it was fun, rigorous, and totally worth it.) You can find her on Pinterestorganizing boards around humor research, digital literacy, ELL, and dinner ideas, and you can find her out in the real world running and teaching cardio kickboxing!

Krystal Cagnon is a High School Special Education teacher in Narragansett RI. She has obtained a Bachelors of Science and Masters in Education with a focus on teaching students with Severe Intellectual Disabilities from Rhode Island College. She is currently attending the tier 2 track at the Summer Institute in Digital Literacy. Krystal began her teaching career at the middle school level and transferred to the high school to begin a Transition Life Skills program. Krystal teaches students with significant disabilities both within the school and in their community. She is passionate about helping students increase their independence and become meaningfully engaged community members post graduation. Most recently, Krystal was elected as the 2015 Teacher of the year for the Narragansett School System.

Amanda Murphy 

Dr. Jill Castek is a Research Assistant Professor at Portland State University with the Literacy, Language, and Technology Research Group. Jill is the principal investigator on an Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant focused on digital literacy acquisition among vulnerable adult learners, an IMLS National Leadership grant in collaboration with Multnomah County Library focused on assessing library patrons' Problem Solving in Technology Rich Environments, and an IES training grant focused on multidisciplinary research using PIAAC data. Prior to joining the faculty at Portland State, she was a post-doc with the Seeds of Science Roots of Reading team at the University of California, Berkeley where she explored the use of digital tools to encourage science and literacy learning. She earned a Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut where she was a fellow in the New Literacies Research Lab.

Kara Clayton has taught media studies courses for more than 20 years at Thurston High School in the South Redford School District just outside of Detroit, Michigan. She holds a Bachelors in Communication from The University of Michigan, and a Masters in Reading from Eastern Michigan University. She recently completed the Digital Literacy Certificate Program at The University of Rhode Island Harrington School of Communication. Kara is the recipient of the Courageous Persuaders Courageous Leader Award, the National Council of Teachers of EnglishLiteracy Award, and the Michigan Youth Arts Touchstone Award . Her students have also won awards for their video production work. Check out Kara's YouTube channel if you have a chance to see some of the work her students have produced. Kara also served as a board member for the National Association of Media Literacy. She will be a presenting Tips and Tools session on building a Website Using Wikispaces, and will be co-presenting a Promising Practice Session with Amanda Murphy on the findings from their EDC 534 Research Project on the Use of Smartphones in the High School Classroom. Kara can be reached @thtvvideo and at thtvvideo@gmail.com

Reza Clifton is a writer, digital storyteller and cultural navigator recognized in RI as a pioneering blogger, podcaster and social media user. She has been awarded for multimedia projects that appeared on her first blog, RezaRitesRi.com; for programs she's produced as podcasts and for WRIU, a radio station and broadcast service of URI, her alma mater; and for leadership as a community organizer and contributor to the music and art scene in Providence, RI, where she calls home. She has also contributed to audio and video stories aired on NPR, WGBH, and RI Public Radio – in Washington, DC; Boston, MA; and Providence, RI, respectively.

Charlie Coiro is a leadership instructor, facilitator and consultant with the U.S. Coast Guard. He has 30 years of service as an Active Duty and Civilian member of the Coast Guard. During his 23 years in the leadership development arena, he has instructed thousands of students in programs ranging from one to fifty week durations. Charlie has developed more than 100 courses, workshops, and publications related to: collaboration, leadership theory, facilitation, consulting, communications, conflict management, change management and self-awareness. In 1998 he helped establish the Coast Guard’s Leadership Development Center where he currently works. In addition to his work in the Coast Guard, he has also consulted with numerous businesses and non-profit organizations. Charlie has a B.S. in Political Science from the United States Coast Guard Academy and an M.S. in Quality Systems Management from the National Graduate School.

Dr. Julie Coiro is Associate Professor of Reading in the School of Education at the University of Rhode Island. She also works collaboratively with Renee Hobbs in URI's Media Education Lab. Julie was one of the original creators of the New Literacies Summer Teacher Leader Institute in 2009. She speaks nationally about her research in reading comprehension strategy instruction, the new literacies of the Internet, online reading comprehension, and effective practices for technology integration and professional development. Before coming to URI, Julie worked as Co-Director of The New Literacies Research Labat the University of Connecticut. Julie has a Bachelor’s degree in Special Education with a focus on students with learning disabilities; a Masters’ degree in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of New Orleans with a focus on reading; and a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology in the area of Cognition and Instruction from the University of Connecticut. She is a former middle school and elementary school teacher and has provided professional development to teachers around the country for the past 20 years.

For the last eleven years

Karen Festa is a special education teacher at Narragansett Elementary School and has experience working with all children birth through grade 5. This past year she was a digi-catalyst teacher under the fabulous partnership with URI and Dr. Renee Hobbs, co-presented at RIASCD beginner teacher conference in April expanding access under CCSS for students with disabilities using digital literacy, presented in various school districts aligning IEP's to CCSS, participated in the RIDE teacher resource summit which looked at designing and evaluating lesson plans under the Equip Rubrics as well as cultivating and creating online resources to be shared across the state of RI, and currently participates in a RIDE focus group working to develop and statewide present professional development strategies, tools, and resources to teach all students under CCSS in the fall of 2015. Here are some links to Karen's screencast lesson plan samples and resources: Grade 2 Digital Literacy Lesson Screencast Grade 3 CCSS MLK Lesson Teacher Talk Dedication to an Amazing Class

Elizaveta Friesem 

Yonty Friesem is a PhD student in the joint doctoral program in education at the University of Rhode Island and Rhode Island College. For the last fifteen years, Jonathan worked with numbers of media youth organizations, Universities and Colleges in Israel. As a graduate from the Camera Obscura Art School in Tel-Aviv, he became a reporter for the local news and a producer in the national network. His global feature production 'Yeladim Tovim" helped him to structure a powerful and effective program for youth media production in the educational system in Israel. Building two communication and cinema departments in high schools as well as teaching various populations of youth across the country, Yonty became an advocate for the youth media movement in Israel. After receiving a M.A.in policy and management in education, he continued to advocate for research on the impact of media production experiences of adolescent social and emotional development all around the world. Starting January 2012 Yonty became the manager of the Media Education Lab at the Harrington School of Communication and Media. Currently he is developing a media literacy curriculum for foster youth and special education population. His research asses the process of cognitive and emotional growth in a video production class using, face to face, computer mediated communication, and video production. By using different dimension of empathy, Yonty aims to better understand the outcomes of a digital media literacy program taught in schools.

Laura Gogia is the graduate fellow at the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Academic Learning Transformation (ALT) Lab in Richmond, Virginia, where she designs and researches Connected Learning> in online, higher education contexts. Her most recent collaboration is VCU's successful, open, connected course on designing community engaged research, known best as#CuriousCoLab. Laura has also developed instructional and informational materials for the integration of blogging and tweeting in the higher education learning environment. She is the founder of Twitter Journal Club, a highly experimental, monthly, synchronous, live-tweeting reading club which focuses on open, digital, and connected scholarship, and she helped found an online open access journal for prison educators. Laura has published on alternative approaches to scholarship and has participated in numeroushangouts on digital presence and scholarship. Her dissertation research involves creating and evaluating alternative assessment strategies for blogging and microblogging in university-based connected courses with a special focus on social network and discourse analytics. Other research interests include building bridges between the Connected Learning, Networked Learning, and open education research communities.

Angela Henderson is a Professor of Reading at Fullerton College in California. She has her M.A. in English and her M.S. in Reading from CSU Fullerton. In December 2013, Angela received her certificate in Online Teaching from the University of California, Irvine. She teaches courses in developmental reading, reading skills for college learning and a critical thinking course at Fullerton College. She also teaches an online course in the Post-Secondary Reading and Learning Certificate program at CSU Fullerton. She has been teaching online for the past decade. She has presented about blogging at several conferences and on her campus for staff development.

Carol Herrmann 

Darnell Kemp is a Professor of Reading at Fullerton College in Southern California. At the college she is part of the Transfer Achievement Program, the Entering Scholars Program, and the Basic Skills Committee. In addition to teaching at the community college level for the last five years, she taught high school English for thirteen years. She teaches online, face to face, and in the hybrid format. She received her M.A. in Education with an emphasis in secondary reading from California State University Long Beach and a Virtual Teacher Certificate from the University of California, Irvine. Darnell was a member of the South Basin Writing Project working on writing workshops for both students and fellow faculty. She also worked with the California Writing Project on the development and classroom evaluation of a student improvement rubric. She presents campus technology each semester to new faculty and adjunct faculty. She also presents to those faculty interested in specific topics such as flipping the classroom, communicating with students their way, Remind, and Socrative.

Dr. April Marie Leach

Dianna Locke is a Media and Educational Technology Instructor with the Fulton County School District in Atlanta, Georgia. Prior to coming to Atlanta, Ms. Locke was a Media Specialist in the Ann Arbor Public Schools, Michigan. Dianna brings over twenty years of experience as a media specialist and librarian and holds an MLIS from Wayne State University. She is passionate about Project Based Learning, Libraries and Digital Literacy. She is currently enrolled in the Digital Literacy Certificate Program at The University of Rhode Island Harrington School of Communication. Dianna will be presenting an Amazing Text session on the importance of using primary sources from the National Archives and how easy it can be using DocsTeach App. Dianna can be reached at locked@fultonschools.org.

Leah Lubman is a Tier 2 alum of URI's Digital Literacy Institute. Since October 2015 she has been working as the Branch Manager forWashington Park Library; part of Providence Community Library (PCL). There she has worked to support digital literacy programming foryouth and adults. In addition to her role as branch manager she also worked as the lead grant writer for StoryCorps @ Your Library, a grant which pitted Providence Public Library against over 300 libraries throughout the country. All applicants were reviewed and selected byStoryCorps and The American Library Association.. Following a swift up-hill battle PCL library was selected along with 9 other libraries, including Ferguson, MO. Soon after the announcement in March Leah began training with StoryCorps. Since then she has worked collaboratively with StoryCorps and PCL on supporting the system-wide implementation of this project; working to collect and archive the voices of our community at PCL, StoryCorps, and with the Library of Congress.

Ed McDonough is a Digital Video Educator at Canton High, in Canton Massachusetts. He seeks to help others create videos worth watching. McDonough also serves on the District Technology PLC and as Cable Access Coordinator. His students collaborate with Canton Community Television managing an educational access cable Student Station. Nationally Ed is a past executive board member of the Student Television Network. He currently serves the Scholastic Media Associationregionally as an Educational Liaison. McDonough’s students have earned recognition from a wide variety of organizations including the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Many of his students have gone onto careers in the industry including CBS’s “The Good Wife”, ESPN and Disney. Perhaps the biggest benefactors of his teaching have been students who have no intention of pursuing a career in the field. Instead they have found their voice via digital storytelling. Ed McDonough can be found on Twitter @Digucator. He is an advocate of Cell Phone Cinematography & Student Personal Branding.

Diana McMasters is a Technology Teacher for the Interdistrict School for Arts and Communication, a charter middle school in New London, CT. Though not yet 1:1, ISAAC is a technology-rich school where computers, iPads, electronic whiteboards, probeware, document projectors, and digital cameras are integrated into all subject areas throughout the day. As an Expeditionary Learning School, technology is richly integrated into academically rigorous learning Expeditions - - where learning is connected to real-world issues through projects, field work, and case studies that inspire students to think and learn at a high level, and produce professional-quality artifacts. Prior to ISAAC, Diana worked as a Technology Integration Specialist for LEARN, a Regional Education Service Center in Connecticut. She has worked teaching teachers and students in the field of Education Technology for 22 years. I can be reached atDiana_McMasters@isaacschool.org.

Mary Moen is a Library Media Specialist at Chariho Regional High School in Rhode Island. She is a also the Unified Arts Department Chairperson and is involved in curriculum development, assessment validation, and education technology integration. As her school moves to a 1:1 device program, Mary is excited to facilitate the successful implementation of the program. She recently presented some of her work teaching with digital resources at the Digital Engagement Workshop sponsored by the Media Education Lab at the University of Rhode Island, the Learning First Alliance/RI Conference, and the Rhode Island Library Association Annual Conference.

Kathleen Ralf teaches Humanities & English at Frankfurt International School in Oberursel, Germany. She is also an instructor for the Global Online Academy and will be teaching a course on Genocide and Human Rights this fall. As a teacher she works to create a classroom that is active, hands on, and full of creativity. She has been an active leader in technology integration on her 1:1 campus as well as an advocate of the Blended Learning model. Kathleen recently presented at theEuropean League of Middle Level Education (ELMLE) Conference in Warsaw, Poland where she discussed the benefits of using memorials to connect students with local history.

Evanna Ratner teaches communication and Media studies at the Gordon College of Education, Haifa,Israel. She is also the coordinator of Media Studies in the ministry of education in Israel, and deals with reconstructing media content. As a teacher she works to create a classroom that is active, hands on, and full of creativity. She refers to the aesthetic and semiotic elements of an image or text, and deals with issues of power and ideology within media messages. She specializes in multicultural topics and the importance of multiple points of view and different narratives in order for a functioning democracy to work. Her Current Research Project as part of her doctoral program in The Faculty of Education at the University of Haifa is “ Co – Existence in Dialogue through cinema: The effect of bi-national visual media production on mutual understanding of ” the other” – The Ph.D. Dissertation was handed last Nov. 2014.

Michael RobbGrieco is the Director of Curriculum and Technology Integration for the Windham Southwest school district in Vermont. Mike recently completed his doctorate in Media & Communication at Temple University with a dissertation on the history of media literacy. He is an affiliated faculty member of the Media Education Lab at the University of Rhode Island, an associate editor of the Journal of Media Literacy Education, and the founder of the //Media Lunacy for Media Literacy// blog (hence the silly picture).

Mike grew up in Baltimore, MD, has spent lots of time making music and movies, and taught high school English and ESOL in New Hampshire and Philadelphia before pursuing his Ph.D. He and his wife Sarah moved to Vermont to be closer to family in 2011 and have been having a blast with their daughter Regina since she joined them in 2013. Mike is excited to return to K-12 education in support of teachers' professional development and their use of digital communication technology to enhance student learning in and out of the classroom. He looks forward to the challenge of identifying and meeting the specific needs of teachers and learners in rural Vermont through sharing innovative approaches to digital and media literacy education. At the institute, he is hoping to connect with a few gurus and/or partners in digital & media literacy flavored ed tech leadership in K-12 schools. Mike thinks writing about himself in the third person is hilarious, but he's going to change voice here for this last bit.

Frank Romanelli is the coordinator of the Early Credit High School Program for Writing and Rhetoric at University of Rhode Island. He has developed and directed programs in early enrollment and dual enrollment in RI and MA. He also facilitates faculty development workshops in project based learning, technology and learning, and digital literacy. Frank teaches live, blended, and online classes in Writing, Communication Studies, and Education.

Cheryl Space has been the Youth Services Coordinator at the Providence Community Library since August 2014. She is responsible for the implementation of the National Leadership Grant, Ready for Kindergarten!,Providence Community Library received in 2013 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. This project, designed for families with 3 1/2 - 5 year old children who are not enrolled in a formal preschool program, is a partnership among Providence Community Library, RI Family Literacy Initiative, Ready to Learn Providence, and the Providence School Department. In the Spring of 2015, Providence Community Library received funding from the RI Department of Transportation to offer film making classes for teens at the Washington Park and Mt. Pleasant Libraries. In partnership with VSA Arts RI and the URI Media Education Lab, teens created public service announcements promoting seat belt adaptation.

Diane Watt will be attending Tier 2 of URI's Digital Literacy Institute. She is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Werklund School of Educationat the University of Calgary. Diane is a Teacher Educator who teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in Literacies, Schooling and Society, Curriculum Design and Evaluation, Diversity, Second Language Teaching and Learning, and Cultural Studies. [See her websiteand follow her on Twitter and Facebook]. Diane is interested in the DIY new literacy practices that youth are involved with outside of school, especially video production. Her current research is a collaborative visual ethnography which engages the media making experiences and sense of identity of three Somali-Canadian Muslim female YouTubers. In addition to traditional print texts, they are co-producing and sharing their research as short videos and a documentary. What does it mean to conduct research in the digital age? It is important not only to investigate literacy practices taking place in digital spaces, but also draw upon the affordances of digital technologies to conduct and disseminate that research. To find out more go to the project website Muslim Female YouTubers Speak Back and follow on TwitterVimeo YouTube Join me Wednesday afternoon for a discussion on using visual methods to research youth new literacy practices outside of school.

Kate Maloney Williams is a media ecologist and works as Proposal Coordinator at Child Trends, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research center that improves the lives and prospects of children and youth by conducting high-quality research and sharing the resulting knowledge with practitioners and policymakers. Prior to joining Child Trends, Kate served as a grants officer for British Red Cross Refugee Services, where she worked to safeguard vulnerable children and adults in the asylum-seeking process. Kate's research interests include Digital Literacy and International Education Policy; she holds a Master of Science in Media, Communication & Development from The London School of Economics, where her graduate dissertation conducted cognitive interviewing and discourse analysis in Sri Lanka on how regional classroom environments impact the ways in which Sinhalese teenagers take up social media and other information and communication technologies for international development -- following time spent as a teacher at an iNGO-run telecentre in the Western Province. She also has served as a policy research assistant to the LSE Media Policy Project and holds a dual B.A. in English Studies and Communications and Media Studies from Fordham University, where she worked with at-risk youth as a teaching assistant with elementary and middle schools along the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. She sits as a permanent chair on both the Child Trends’ Safety Committee, as well as the Institutional Review Board, and coordinates staff training on conducting research on human subjects in order to ensure a safe and ethical research environment. She is also a member of Wikimedia DC and Women Who Code.''

William Yang has been an educator for over fifteen years as a classroom teacher, technology teacher, staff developer, and administrator in New York City Public Schools, Scarsdale Public Schools, and Chappaqua Central School District in New York. He received his M.A. in Elementary education from Teachers College-Columbia University, studied Educational Administration and Supervision at New York University, and completed his M.Ed in Advanced Literacy at the Bank Street Graduate School of Education. William Yang is a contributing writer for the Technology in Literacy Education (TILE-SIG) blog on International Literacy Association’s “Reading Today Online” and has presented his work on literacy and technology at several national conferences. He served as an adjunct instructor at the Bank Street Graduate School of Education and Fordham University's Graduate School of Education. He can be reached by email at william.c.yang@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @wcyang.

Jiwon Yoon (Ph.D., Temple University) is an Assistant Professor at Roosevelt University in Chicago. She has been focusing on research in media literacy for global understanding, intercultural communication, popular culture in North and South Korea, and Pan-Asian identity. Her works have been published in scholarly journals and as book chapters. She has taught media literacy in the U.S., South Korea, and China in various educational settings, such as public/private schools, alternative educational settings, universities, and teacher education programs. Jiwon also has received research awards from BEA (Broadcast Education Association) and ICA (International Communication Association). Her doctoral dissertation, “Media Literacy Education to Promote Cultural Competence and Adaptation among Diverse Students: A Case Study of North Korean Refugees in South Korea,” examines how media literacy education can enhance immigrants’/refugees’ better understanding of and an adaptation to their host society.

While she was at Temple University as a Ph.D. student, she was a graduate student member in the Media Education Lab and participated in various projects, such as, but not limited to: MyPopStudio.com (developed the content and format of online multimedia curriculum for girls); Media Literacy as a Means to Promote Cultural Understanding project (worked as a consultant in a project to promote better understanding of Muslim culture through media literacy); and Digital Nation (as part of a team, developed a structured online learning experience for educators and parents using video and multimedia resources created for the television documentary entitled Digital Nation). Yoon also has worked with South Korean media literacy scholars and educators to develop educational resources that implement media literacy education for multicultural education. Currently at Roosevelt University, one of her classes is Media Literacy, in which university students first learn about children’s media experiences and various media literacy education practices. Then, Roosevelt students teach media literacy to children in one of the Chicago Public Schools. She is also working as the liaison with faculty across the university, facilitating their use of service learning pedagogies and helping to further institutionalize service-learning across the university.