Keynote Speakers
- Saturday Leadership Summit: Cheryl Lemke and Steve Moss
- Saturday Opening Session: Mike Hanley
- Sunday General Session: Cheryl Lemke
- Monday General Session: Cara Heitz
- Tuesday General Session: Steve Moss
Featured Speakers
- Artist in Residence: Dr. Jason Ohler
- Enhanced Writing Practices: Ray Voley
- FAB LAB: Randy Hughey, Pat Kraft, and John Niebergall
- Google Workshop: Jim Sill
- Mobile App Creation: Chris Bruce
Mike Hanley
Saturday - Keynote Speaker
Mike Hanley began his tenure as Alaska's Commissioner of Education & Early Development in February 2011. He holds a business degree from Bethel College in Minnesota and started his career by owning and operating small businesses, including a commercial fishing operation in Bristol Bay. In 1990, he received his teaching degree and began his career in education.
In the classroom, Hanley's vision of connecting students to their community and the world kept his classes engaged and looking beyond the classroom walls. Later, as a principal, he engaged and empowered teachers to do the same with the new opportunities that technology brought to the classroom.
Now, as Alaska's education commissioner, Hanley sees the state's opportunity to lead the country in digital learning and improve education for our children. He supports Alaska's Learning Network, which uses distance technology to provide equal access to high-quality high school courses across the state, and its Digital Sandbox of learning materials created and shared by Alaska teachers. He has worked with Governor Parnell to introduce digital learning into the education budget, with support for broadband, and digital devices for all students.
Cheryl Lemke
Saturday - Leadership Summit and Sunday - Keynote Speaker
Cheryl Lemke is President and CEO of the Metiri Group. Ms. Lemke specializes in K20 educational technology and 21st Century Learning. She is well known for her expertise and experience in systems thinking, from the policy level - with governors, legislators, superintendents, business leaders - to the school and classroom - with administrators, teachers, students, and parent. She brings over 25 years of experience in the public sector -- as a teacher, technology director, policy expert at a national education laboratory, executive director at a foundation, and cabinet member at a state education agency. She was a key architect in several frameworks for educational technology and associated audit systems, including enGauge, Dimensions21, and Project 24. She is currently working with the state of Michigan to ensure district and school technology readiness for online assessments planned for 2014.
Ms. Lemke is considered a thought leader in the U.S. and internationally. She is routinely commissioned to develop policy briefs, research briefs, and white papers by private sector technology companies including Intel, Cisco, Apple, and Microsoft. She recently wrote a chapter in a book on 21st Century Learning with a major publisher, has written briefing papers for Intel on Digital Learning, Professional Development, and Assessment, and is providing strategic policy consulting to the province of Alberta, Canada. She also serves in as an evaluator for educational technology projects including Ohio's statewide Blended Learning Project and new Center for Special Needs Students and Online Learning. She speaks nationally and internationally, most recently in Korea, Canada, Singapore, and China.
Cara Heitz
Monday - Keynote Speaker
Cara is the 2012 State of Alaska Teacher of the Year. Her vision as a future physician was to help heal the sick and educate the healthy. However, fifteen years ago Cara unknowingly assisted a student to develop an enthusiasm for lifelong learning and her vision changed. She embarked on a journey to become a teacher of learning through science and she has never looked back. She is now in her 12th year and has come full circle, teaching Advanced Health Care Practices to juniors and seniors at Martin Luther King, Jr. Career Center in Anchorage School District.
Cara has attended and presented at the ASTE conference annually since 2007. In 2009, Cara was an E2T2 Wave VI grant participant as well as an attendee of the Intel Thinking & Teaching with Technology summer program. She has attended several Apple Professional Development trainings, the Google Workshop for Educators and participated in the first ASTE Leadership Summit in 2012. Additionally, over the past several years she has served as an iDida Podcast judge. In 2012, Cara was the recipient of a SMART Technologies Teaching Excellence Award, allowing her to expand her professional development with SMART products in the classroom. In March of 2012, Cara spoke in front of the House Education Committee in Juneau to advocate for further support of technology in education for our state. Most recently, she has begun a Master's program in Instructional Design and Technology with a focus in online learning.
Steve Moss
Saturday - Leadership Summit and Tuesday Keynote Speaker
Steve Moss is one of the UK's most experienced leaders in educational technology. One of the pioneers of computer use in schools, he has held senior posts in schools, local authorities and government agencies. Steve was Strategic Director (ICT) at Partnerships for Schools where he oversaw the provision of technology in the UK government's Building Schools for the Future programme as well as the Free Schools, Academies and University Technical Colleges programmes.
Steve has an international reputation and has supported ministries and schools in China (Hong Kong), Jordan, Australia, UAE, Russia, Sweden and USA. He was a speaker at the inaugural World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) in Qatar in 2009 and is Educational Technology Adviser to the Skolkovo Foundation in Russia.
Working with Google in the UK, Steve devised and developed the "Server-Free School" concept for technology in primary schools. This is an affordable, sustainable solution which uses cloudbased applications and Google Chromebooks.
Fundamental to all Steve's work is ensuring that innovation with technology in education is always driven by an understanding of how it can improve learning outcomes.
Dr. Jason Ohler
Artist in Residence
Jason is a speaker, writer, teacher, researcher, and lifelong digital humanist who is well known for the passion, insight, and humor he brings to his presentations and writings. He is author of numerous articles, books, and teacher resources and continues to work directly with teachers, administrators, and students. Combining twenty-five years of experience in the educational technology field with an eye for the future, Ohler connects with people where they are, and helps them see their importance in the future development of living, learning, and working in the Digital Age. Although he is called a futurist, he considers himself a nowist, working nationally and internationally to help educators and the public use today's tools to create living environments that we are proud to call home.
Dr. Ohler is a Professor Emeritus, Educational Technology at the University of Alaska, where he was the Director and creator of the Masters in Educational Technology program for 20 years before becoming the President's Professor of Educational Technology and Distance Learning for 5 years. He earned his Ph.D. in Communication from Simon Fraser University, and he holds an Alaska State Teaching Certificate in Secondary Education.
Jason has earned many awards including but limited to WCET's Outstanding Work (WOW) award, Cable in the Classroom's Excellence in Education finalist, International Visual Literacy Association's Special Contributions Award, Apple's Distinguished Educator appointment, State of Alaska's Distinguished Career Citation, and Alaska Society for Technology in Education's President's Award.
Ray Voley
Featured Speaker: Writers Workshop and Student Documentaries
Ray Voley lives in a log cabin on the edge of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve with his wife, Stephanie, and two children, Wesley and Hannah. He taught fifth-grade through high school at Scammon Bay, Alaska, for six years. He has been the high school social studies and technology teacher at Kenny Lake School for 13 years. He earned degrees in Political Science and History from the University of Utah, and a Masters of Arts in Teaching from the University of Alaska Anchorage. His students have produced more than 20 award-winning short films, and 90-minute documentaries on the history of the Kennecott Mine, the 1898 Valdez Gold Rush, and the Copper River and Northwestern Railway, all of which have aired on Alaska Public Television. His goal has always been to promote creativity, and build community through the power of technology and story. His students currently produce written stories, podcasts and video stories for hawknews.org. He is the 2008 Alaska Teacher of the Year, and the 2008 Alaska History and Cultural Studies Teacher of the Year.
Feature Speakers: Design and Fabrication: FAB LAB
Randy Hughey
Randy Hughey is a CTE teacher and program coordinator at Sitka High School. This is his 30th year of teaching, career counseling, grant writing, and program development in Alaska. Randy has been instrumental in establishing CTE programs in CAD/CAM, Health Sciences, Public Safety, Welding, and Construction in the school systems in Sitka. His undergraduate and Master's degrees are from Oregon State University.
Pat Kraft
Pat Kraft has been a Faculty Instructor at Portland Community College for the last nine years, coming out of industry to teach. His focus areas are Mastercam CAD/CAM software, CNC machining, and advanced manufacturing technology, such as additive manufacturing, digital laser scanning, and laser cutters. He has a BS degree in Manufacturing Engineering Tech for the Oregon Institute of Technology (OIT) and is an SME Certified Manufacturing Engineer. Additionally, he is a Co-PI on an NSF grant through RapidTech, the National Center for Additive Manufacturing in Irvine California, and has been a featured presenter for the last five years at their national training conference held the first week of August each year. He also teaches a technology training conference in Portland each July to educate technology instructors on new technology for possible adoption into their programs.
John Niebergall
Over the course of John's 29-year career in public education he has taught Engineering, Architecture, CAD/CAM, and Woodworking. In all of these classes, he provides his students with hands-on, contextual, real-world learning experiences. He has coached his students in robotics where they were national champions. He has raised over $125,000 through grants and in-kind contributions, and with this money he has established a Digital Fab Lab with industry-standard software and state of the art prototyping equipment for his students. The Fab Lab led to a student-run, school-based enterprise, providing students with the experience of designing, developing, manufacturing, and marketing a series of products used within the community of Sherwood.
John has also been an innovator in creating opportunities for underrepresented students. John noticed the lack of non-traditional students in the Career and Technical Education classes at SHS. John Co-developed a program in 2009-2010 that would be a team-taught class, for girls only, in which they would design, develop, and produce a product following the template of his other classes. The response was overwhelming when the class was launched. In 2011 John and three students were recognized by the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) with the Award for Aspirations in Computing.
Jim Sill
Featured Speaker: Google Workshop
After working in the TV/Video business, Jim took his love for making video and moved it to the classroom where he is now in his seventh year of teaching video production. Jim currently teaches at El Diamante High School (EDHS) in Visalia, CA where they feature a bi-weekly television show for students and staff. The EDHS Advanced Video class is an Apple Certified Training Center for Education. Students study to take the Apple Certified Pro Certification Exam in Final Cut Pro, Level One.
As an Apple Distinguished Educator, Google Certified Teacher, Google Apps EDU Certified Trainer and Apple Certified Trainer, Jim leads professional development workshops across the United States and Canada. In 2009, he was recognized as Computer Using Educator's (CUE) Outstanding Teacher and his 2010 Google for Video session was recognized as Best of CUE.
Some of the topics that Jim is passionate about include Using Video for Social Change, Cinematic Narrative Techniques, Encouraging a Creative Student, Google in the Classroom and much more.
Chris Bruce
Featured Speaker: Mobile App Creation
Chris Bruce is a National Board Certified physics teacher at James B. Conant High School in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. He was born and raised in Alaska and graduated from Ketchikan High School. From there he went to MIT to study mechanical engineering. Upon graduation, he was commissioned as a submarine officer in the U.S. Navy. After seven years on active duty, he followed his dream and became a high school physics teacher. In his spare time, Chris is the lead developer for Nerd Island Studios, LLC, creators of "Step2Step Physics - Mechanics", an iPad app for learning physics. He is also piloting a 1:1 program where every student in one of his physics classes takes home an iPad. Chris loves to create new technology tools and apps for his students.
