GlobalSchoolNet.org -- Linking Kids Around the World!

Websites: www.sgaconsulting.org | www.tcpd.org  |  www.gsn.org  | www.storynet.org

Name:  Bonnie Bracey, United States of America

Position: Bonnie Bracey is a teacher-agent of change, working on technology integration projects with classroom teachers and national organizations. She also works internationally with Global Information Infrastructure initiatives as a consultant. She does outreach teaching with the George Lucas Educational Foundation. A former Fulbright Exchange Teacher in India and an elementary school teacher in Virginia, Ms. Bracey was selected as a Christa McAuliffe Educator by the National Education Association. She is also a Challenge Center Fellow and an Earthwatch Fellow. She served on the faculty of the Challenger Center and is a NEWEST Graduate, Langley, and NEW graduate of Goddard Space Center. She is a longtime advocate of science, math , engineering and technology learning for children at an early age. Ms. Bracey is currently involved with two MIT projects: the Games Project and Media, Education and the Marketplace. Ms. Bracey is a frequent speaker at educational technology conferences and those focusing on bridging the Digital Divide.

Ms. Bracey has served on numerous advisory boards including: Technos, The National Urban League, E-School News, On the Horizon, African Schoolnet, CTCnet, the President's National Information Infrastructure Advisory Council, the White House Technology Initiative-Cyber Ed., and the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education Task Force. She was the original network director of the 21st Century Teacher's Network and serves on the American Association for the Advancement of Science's Kinetic City Advisory Board. She was co founder of the Online Internet Institute, an NSF funded grant. She is a member of the ISTE Minority task force and has several listservs, one for digital equity, one through her participation with gender equity through teacher tech at Rice University, and one through the MIT channels on technology outreach.

She is involved in a digital equity project and a technology resource project with the National Community Innovations projects which share content with resources with PT3 projects. The National Institute for Community Innovations offers a Digital Equity Portal full of on-line resources for educators to increase digital equity Nationally she also works with  with the Imagiverse Project,  and is a student of Ubiquitous Technology. She was selected  as one of the 25 most important women on the web, and is a webby judge this year in the educational section. Internationally, she produced the high technology  and the indigenous project for the Third World Summit in Thessaloniki, Greece, and works with the Med Agora Project. She has worked in 17 countries around the world and this year was honored for this work. Bonnie Bracey, a change agent and inspirational outstanding advocate for teachers, kids, and teacher educators was recognized for Outstanding Service to Digital Equity at the SITE 2004 Conference. Bonnie has been an important contributor to the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education (SITE) Symposium on Digital Equity since its inception bringing her passion to bear on the core of educational renewal: teacher education. Sir John Daniel, Assistant Director-General for Education, UNESCO presented her award.

Website: www.tcp.org

Position: Ms. Yue-Chane has been devoting herself to Children's education for fifteen years. She has been an active author in Chinese children's literature and has published eight books for kids. She was chief editor of science section for the Chinese Children's Encyclopedia and for Kid's Monthly magazine. She was chief editor of information page for the only children's newspaper in Taiwan, Mandarin Daily News. She is currently the president of the Dragon Book Co. Ltd., as well as the producer of Digital New Education program, for the Educational Broadcasting System in Taiwan. She is also in charge of several internet based projects namely, the Taiwan Schools Cyberexchange program, the 2000 Taiwan Schools CyberFair program, the Kids Care for Kids program, and the Bancroft and Arnesen Expedition curriculum in Taiwan. She is currently a country coordinator in Taiwan for IEARN.

Position: Barbara Dieu has been an educator for more than 30 years and presently teaches EFL at the Lycée Pasteur, a bilingual secondary school in São Paulo. Her passionate involvement in international projects and collaboration online placed her among the 2003 and 2004 finalists of the Global Schoolnet Award. She represents This is Our Time project, of which her school has become home base for the French and Portuguese speaking countries and belongs to the Tesol Technology Advisory Committee.

As an active member of the Webheads in Action, European Schoolnet and Cyberlangues, she has led numerous live and webcast presentations and workshops, collaborated in, planned and organized ICT projects so as to promote networking, interaction, creativity, knowledge acquisition and cultural understanding.

Position:  Dr. Philip Hui Kwok Fai is an international development educator. An international consultant to the Asian Development Bank in a project for improving basic education in underdeveloped areas of China through the use of information and communication technologies, Dr. Hui’s contributions to education planning and capacity building of educational leaders in developing countries spans more than a decade. He was Programme Leader for the World Bank’s capacity-building and effective leadership programme designed for Sri Lankan school principals.

Dr. Hui has Living Knowledge, a not-for-profit organization whose vision is to empower individuals in rural areas of developing countries through active learning. Through construction of living knowledge and e-learning platforms, Living Knowledge aims to cultivate a community of practice of civic engagement for sustainable livelihoods and sustainable development. Dr Hui’s efforts in promoting living knowledge continues to be a major contribution towards the Town and Talent Project in YellowSheepRiver village in Gansu province of China. A major private undertaking, the Town and Talent Project is in the process of nurturing no less than 10,000 computer software development talents from 1,000 villages within 10 years in rural China.

Dr. Philip Hui has also been involved in planning and developing a number of policy documents for the Hong Kong and Macau governments for many years. These documents include the following consultancy reports: “Higher Education in Macau: Strategic Development for the New Era” (2001), “Code of Practice on Education under Disability Discrimination Ordinance” (2000) and “9-year Free and Compulsory Education Research Report: Aims and Implementation” (1996).

Dr. Hui has written, edited, and translated more than 20 books and articles. They include the following: “Higher Education in Macau: Growth and Strategic Development” (2002) “Reform of Educational Systems and Teacher Education: The Asian Experience” (2000) and “Mathematics in the Primary School: Intelligent Learning” (1995) (in Chinese).

Presently, Dr. Hui’s areas of research focus are the use of ICTs in education, knowledge management, and poverty elimination. He has developed two sets of CD-ROM and websites on the following: “The Policy of IT in Education: Hong Kong Landscape,” and “Teacher education and policy development in Hong Kong”. Dr. Hui has also built a virtual learning community of teachers (for their professional development) and students (to promote active learning), in collaboration with five primary schools in Hong Kong. Invitations to Dr. Hui as guest speaker at international workshops, organized by the Asian Development Bank Institute and the Korean Ministry of Education, have been on the topics of cyber-education and partnership in education.

Lewis wants to excite students and help teachers. To do so, Lewis conducts on-site and online workshops that focus on topics such as the writing process and the integration of digital media into the classroom. Bill has been invited into more than 600 schools, conferences, workshops, and museums from California to England. Bill is a graduate of Dartmouth College, with a Master's Degree from the Ohio State University.

Interests centre around the integration of ICT into the curriculum. Particularly in the area of communications projects. Peter currently teach three days a week at Fahan school and as a Professional Development consultant for the Catholic and Non Government schools here in Tasmania. His Professional Development role with schools in Tasmania allows him to work in a number of different schools with teachers in all curriculum and year levels. The Catholic Education schools are predominantly Apple throughout the State. Peter writes for the local Sate paper on ICT with his colleague Vince Summers.

Peter has a wife, Elizabeth, and three boys, William, Tomos and James. He is also charged with caring for woo budgies, Bob and Trevor.

Position: Lukas Ritzel is CoFounder of Change Management consulting company Prasena , his company got in 2004 the Purple Cow award of companies who "make a difference" from the FAST company. He is a specialist in Creativity, eLearning and Knowledgemanagement Systems. His own teaching site is at http://www.dct.ch/ict/dct.htm . Lukas Ritzel is further Switzerland chapter President of the Digital Workforce Education Society . Lukas Ritzel has been speaker (in real as well as virtual) at many international conferences, some of his best presentations can be seen at Prasena's Virtual_U . Lukas Ritzel can be reached at lritzel@prasena.com or through skype (skypename: lritzel). Latest contribution to education during the ICLORD international conference in 2005, April in Bangkok on the topic of collaboration tools for schools, teachers and students http://www.prasena.com/public/events/iclord2005.htm . Lukas Ritzel is Swiss and Cyber citizen!

Websites: http://www.prasena.com/public/virtual_u.html 

Position: Don Mitchell entered civilian federal service in 1970 as a management intern at the Department of Agriculture. In 1972, he moved to NSF, and began a career in contracting. In the mid-70s, he developed a system for motion picture production which was adopted in 1977 for government-wide use, pioneered the use of support contracting (before) and cooperative agreements (after) the inception of the Grant and Cooperative Agreement Act and managed the first civilian agency SBIR solicitation, as well as the first procurement which put a microcomputer on the desk of every employee in a federal agency. In 1987, he left NSF's Division of Grants and Contracts to join the newly formed division of Networking and Communications Research and Infrastructure (NCRI) shortly before the beginning of the NSFNET Program.

In addition to his role in NSFs major infrastructure activities, he was personally responsible for the Global Schoolhouse Project, Cornell University's (CU-SeeMe) Conferencing Software development and Cells-in-Frames projects, the InterNIC, the Internet Scout Project, Dave Hughes Wireless Field tests, the National Laboratory for Applied Networking Research, the Internet Caching Project, the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis, the National Center for Data Mining,the very high performance Backbone Network Service and the High Performance Wireless Research and Education Network.

Website: http://www.globalschoolnet.org/about/bio/donmitchell.htm

Position:  Bob Pearlman has been a key leader of educational reform efforts nationally in a unique 30-year career as a teacher, Co-Director of Computer Education, teacher union leader and negotiator, Foundation President, and Director of Education and Workforce Development. Pearlman’s experience and expertise includes Whole District Reform, New School Development, Business-Education Partnerships and coalitions, School-to-Career and Workforce Development, Union—School District Negotiations, School Restructuring and Technology, Project-Based Learning, Professional Development, Educational Finance, and School-site Assessment and Accountability.

Pearlman is currently the Director of Strategic Planning for the New Technology Foundation in Napa, CA, which supports the replication of New Technology High School in twenty-four sites across Northern California, Southern California, and the United States. Additionally Pearlman is a Strategy Consultant for education reform, assisting key reform initiatives around the country. Among these are Sacramento's e21 high school reform initiative, and LINC 2 the Future, Boston's new 5-year technology plan for the schools and the community. He is the former President of the Autodesk Foundation and former Director of Education and Workforce Development at Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network.

Pearlman previously served as Coordinator of Educational Reform Initiatives for the Boston Teachers Union.  As the former National Consultant on Educational Technology for the American Federation of Teachers and as a founder of the Co-NECT School New American School Design Team, Pearlman has been a pioneer in designing new schools, integrating project-based learning, work-based learning, and technology into the schools, and in training teachers, administrators, and parents in the application of new technologies and their role in restructuring schools. Pearlman has been a leader in building coalition organizations that bring together educators, business, labor, and community leaders to support education reform. Key coalition organizations have included the Bay Area School-to-Career Action Network (BaySCAN), the California School-to-Career Action Network (CalSCAN), Business and Education for Schools and Technology (B.E.S.T.), and the Boston Compact. The National Alliance of Business named BaySCAN its 1998 Local Coalition of the Year.

Website: http://www.bobpearlman.org

Position:  Janette Toral is the site owner of DigitalFilipino.com, an e-commerce, outsourcing, and wireless research site that started in September 1999. The site was a launch pad of her book, The DigitalFilipino: An E-Commerce Guide for the eFilipino. She pushed for e-commerce development in the Philippines as she founded the Philippine Internet Commerce Society last September 1997. She lead the organization as president from 1997 to 2002.

In 2002, she is the chairman of the 1st Philippine E-Government Awards. A recognition given to Philippine government agencies who came up with projects in compliance with Republic Act 8792 or the E-Commerce Law.  She currently heads the initiative of coming up with the Philippine E-Commerce Skills Standards Project using the APEC Tel E-Commerce Skills Standards as a kernel. She's a recipient of the CyberFair Ambassador Award, given by the Global SchoolHouse last June 1, 2002 in Taiwan, recognizing the effort of bringing CyberFair in the Philippines. CyberFair is an annual competition among students of primary and secondary schools around the world.

As an IT practitioner, she has more than 13 years of combined experience in the areas of training, management, sales, technical support, web development, event management, media relations, and project management. She's also a freelance writer since 1995 writing about e-commerce and IT developments in the Philippines. She has written articles for international publications such as Business Online, asia.internet.com, and World Executive Digest. Since September 1997 to the present, she has been frequently invited to various IT conferences in the country to talk about e-commerce developments in the Philippines. She is currently engaged in research, consulting, and working on a book project documenting 10 years of the Internet in the Philippines to be launched on March 2004.

Dr. Bezold has coached many organizations, states and local communities in achieving their vision. These include futures projects for state legislatures, governors’ offices, courts in over 20 states and in communities across the US. In supporting foresight in government, Bezold has worked with U.S. governor’s offices, legislatures and courts. He has led foresight projects for several US Federal agencies as well as the British government, the World Health Organization. This includes scenario coaching on 6 continents.

Dr. Bezold has published books and reports on the future of government, the courts, and health care. His books include Anticipatory Democracy: People in the Politics of the Future; Judging the Future (edited with James Dator). His book (with Rick Carlson and Jonathan Peck) The Future of Work and Health, won American Health Magazine’s Book Award. His articles have appeared in The Futurist, Healthcare Forum Journal, Business and Health, Home Care, and Hospital & Health Service Administration. He has taught in high school and at universities and does extensive executive education.

Institute for Global Chinese Affairs, University of Maryland

Like the field of foresight, Mr. Mack’s background is broad and eclectic. He has been a member of the New York and District of Columbia bars since the 1970s and has served as General Counsel for a number of non-profit groups involved in trend analysis, social dynamics and public policy. After holding research positions at the JF Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and the National Academy of Sciences, Tim Mack joined the Budget Policy Task Force at the US General Accounting Office, which serves as the analytical arm of the US Congress.

This academic background allows him to combine public policy analysis with the hands on experience he received working for the next decade as a consultant and lobbyist for associations and civic groups struggling with the issues facing the nations small and larges cities. During this period he wrote for Governing Magazine, published a large number of articles on economic and social trends, and served on a series of high technology start up companies which had developed solutions for pressing environmental and energy problems.

As a change consultant, Tim Mack has assisted the US General Services Agency and the US Dept of Defense in developing strategic planning and change management strategies for such challenges as privatization of public services, superfund clean up and transportation planning. In addition, he has managed global trade issues at the local state federal and even global areas, working with clients in each continent including serving as leading trade trainer for the Institute for Global Chinese Affairs (ranked Number One three years running by the Foreign Experts Bureau in Bejing).

This wide-ranging consulting experience has provided extensive subject area background in such areas as financial services technology, electric power reliability, and civil engineering. Mr. Mack has testified as an expert witness before the White House Conference on Small Business and is presently writing a book on the social and economic impacts of the Internet on modern society.