• Questions regarding participating districts, schools, and teachers:
  • Vivian Goldschmidt, Project Specialist, ringob@pacbell.net
• Questions regarding the PD-ROM Project:
  • Don Lake, Consultant, donslake@sbcglobal.net
• Site Comments:
  • Victoria Costa, vcosta@fullerton.edu

• UNIVERSITIES:
  • California State University Fullerton
    • Department of Mathematics
    • Department of Secondary Education
  • California State University Monterey Bay
• DISTRICTS and COUNTY OFFICES OF EDUCATION
  • Orange County Department of Education
  • Monterey County Office of Education
  • Los Angeles Unified School District
  • Butte County Office of Education
• AGENCIES:
  • Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC)
  • California Postsecondary Education Commission
    • Improving Teacher Quality Grant
  • Center for Distributed Learning
• TEXTBOOK PUBLISHERS:
  • McDougal Littell Mathematics
  • Prentice Hall Mathematics
• MATHEMATICS CURRICULUM, INSTRUCTION AND ASSESSMENT
  • California Mathematics Framework, 2005 Field Review Draft

Mark Ellis, Course Developer
Mark taught mathematics in grades 6-12 in northern California public schools for six years, becoming a National Board Certified Teacher in Early Adolescence Mathematics in 1999. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in 2005 with an emphasis on mathematics education. Mark has taught a mathematics content course for elementary education students, designed and taught an introduction to teaching course for secondary education students, and was the director for a three-year NSF-funded research project examining middle school mathematics teaching practices and student learning outcomes (including conceptual understanding, motivation toward mathematics, and students' mathematical identity). He is a member of the Praxis Middle School Mathematics regeneration committee and serves on the editorial panel for a forthcoming series of books from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics focused on strategies for mathematics instruction that make meaningful learning accessible to diverse groups of students. His publications have appeared in Mathematics Teacher and The Mathematics Educator . Throughout his teaching career, Mark has been driven by a desire to create opportunities for all students-particularly those from groups historically underserved by traditional practices of schooling-to learn important mathematics concepts and skills. In his position at CSU Fullerton, these efforts are continued and extended through his work with pre-service and experienced teachers of mathematics in southern California .

Debra Ambrosetti, Course Developer (Instructional Strategies Strand, Unit 2.1)
Assistant Professor, Secondary Education, California State University Fullerton Debra Ambrosetti received her Ph. D. in Education from the State University of New York, Buffalo in 1998. She specializes in adolescence development and middle school education. Dr. Ambrosetti has taught courses in adolescent psychology, middle school curriculum, the middle school student, multicultural education and the General Pedagogy of Secondary School Teaching. She served as an Advisory Board member of the California League of Middle Schools for three years and on the Rhode Island Middle Level Educators (RIMLE) research association. Dr. Ambrosetti was a Holmes Group Scholar at SUNY-Buffalo for three years, as well as a Schomberg Fellow from State of New York for four years. She also received an outstanding faculty service award from CSUF in 2003. Dr. Ambrosetti has published articles and given conference presentations in the areas of adolescent development, middle school curriculum, culture and curriculum, and multicultural diversity. Dr. Ambrosetti is a former middle school teacher.

Shari Bithell, Online Facilitator
Shari Bithell has been a kindergarten and 6th Grade teacher at Mariposa Elementary School in the Brea-Olinda Unified School District for the last ten years. Ms. Bithell earned her undergraduate degree in Business Administration at California State University Fullerton, and her Professional Clear Multiple Subject Credential, CLAD certificate, and MA in Education from Whittier College.

Twice selected to represent Orange County at the California State CUE Conferences as a Student Technology Showcase winner, 2003 and 2005, Ms. Bithell readily incorporates technology into every subject area she teaches. In one such program, students participate in online Literature Circle discussion blogs with partner preservice teachers from a California State University Fullerton Reading Methods class. Ms. Bithell also uses this form of online communication for individual Math Logs, an online after-after school GATE class, and her award winning Parent Child Book Club.

Teaching math is Shari's first love, and she takes pride in expanding the depth of the learning through technology and project-based teaching. Ms. Bithell is a trained Renaissance Math Instructor, utilizing authentic assessment and a hands-on approach to the teaching of mathematics.

Debra Ambrosetti, Online Facilitator
An Assistant Professor of Secondary Education at California State University Fullerton,Debra Ambrosetti received her Ph. D. in Education from the State University of New York, Buffalo in 1998. She specializes in adolescence development and middle school education. Dr. Ambrosetti has taught courses in adolescent psychology, middle school curriculum, the middle school student, multicultural education and the General Pedagogy of Secondary School Teaching. She served as an Advisory Board member of the California League of Middle Schools for three years and on the Rhode Island Middle Level Educators (RIMLE) research association. Dr. Ambrosetti was a Holmes Group Scholar at SUNY-Buffalo for three years, as well as a Schomberg Fellow from State of New York for four years. She also received an outstanding faculty service award from CSUF in 2003. Dr. Ambrosetti has published articles and given conference presentations in the areas of adolescent development, middle school curriculum, culture and curriculum, and multicultural diversity. Dr. Ambrosetti is a former middle school teacher.

Sandra Lapham, Project Co-Director
Administrator of Instructional Services, Orange County Department of Education
Sandra Lapham is the Director, Educational Technology with a focus on Instructional Technology at the Orange County Department of Education. In this capacity, she provides the leadership for professional growth, student achievement, partnerships, and communication leveraged through technology. She is responsible for all facets of Instructional Technology, Media Production, Professional Library, and Learning Resources Display Center. A videoconference network; virtual and lab based technology proficiency and instructional applications training; live and video satellite and cable productions; Internet communications; corporate partnerships; and state and national technology initiatives are among her areas of expertise.

Sandra is the former Consultant-in-Charge of the Technology For Learning initiative at the Los Angeles County Office of Education, a five year initiative which exponentially increased infrastructure, hardware, instructional resources, and training in 82 school districts. With the Educational Telecommunications Network, she headed the Instructional Materials Development Center, co- anchored the national Math for All telecommunications series, developed and anchored telecasts to train a national facilitation network, and managed the Regional Educational Telecommunications media project.

Sandra is a former program specialist in mathematics, science, and English language arts and has taught kindergarten, first, and seventh grades.

Vivian Goldschmidt, Project Specialist
Orange County Department of Education
Vivian Goldschmidt serves as Project Specialist for PD-ROM, coordinating all aspects involved in the development of the project. She has worked as a consultant to Orange County Department of Education (OCDE) since 2002, managing a variety of projects including a virtual field trip to the Galapagos (involving more than 200 Orange County 4th and 6th grade students) and an annual Student Technology Showcase where teams of students demonstrate and present their exemplary technology projects to a county-wide and statewide audience. She has contributed articles for OCDE’s “Promising Practices”, a quarterly publication reaching all county educators. Vivian was awarded the computer using Educator's (CUE) Gold Disk Award which recognizes contributions to CUE and to Technology in Learning.

Ms. Goldschmidt retired from Pacific Bell in 2000, having worked in a variety of technical design positions in Sales and Marketing, with an emphasis on videoconferencing. She spent the last six years at Pacific Bell with the Education First Initiative, managing the award winning Knowledge Network Explorer web site and its developers, twelve K-12 and library demonstration sites, Education Advocates (teachers training educators and librarians on the effective use of the Internet and videoconferencing in the classroom and library), and all education related conferences and activities. Ms. Goldschmidt has since built a small, successful consulting business focusing on education projects and videoconferencing training. Her projects have included managing the development and launch of the Pacific Bell/UCLA Initiative for 21st Century Literacies web site, creating and delivering Videoconferencing Fundamentals training to California libraries, coordinating and evaluating videoconferencing surveys, creating videoconferencing policy and marketing guidelines, and managing KOCE’s (Orange County’s Public Broadcasting station) 2003 National Teacher Training Institute for over 300 K-12 educators.

John Ittleson, Consultant
Professor, Information Technology and Communications Design, and Director, Interactive Design and Educational Applications (IDEA) Lab, California State University, Monterey Bay
In addition to his teaching schedule, Dr. Ittleson directs the IDEA Lab, an R&D center for technology innovation. For the past three years Dr. Ittleson has served as the CSU Liaison to the Digital California Project (DCP), designed to build the network infrastructure to serve the entire K-20 education and research community. In addition, the IDEA Lab collaborates with The Monterey County Office of Education to help put in place a broadband network to provide last mile connectivity so local schools can take advantage of the statewide infrastructure. Between 1999 and 2003, Dr. Ittleson served as Principal Investigator for a Department of Education's Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) grant program. During the 2001-2002 academic year, Dr Ittleson was selected to be one of two National Learning Infrastructure Initiative (NLII) Fellows Conference. In 2003 he was selected by the CSU Chancellor to be one of twenty-five winners of the distinguished Bautzer Award.He has also chosen by Apple to be Distinguished Educator (ADE), in 2001, 2002 and 2003 and 2004. Dr. Ittleson serves on the Boards of the CSU Virtual Language Lab project and Access Monterey Peninsula Cable Consortium and on the Program Committee for The Digital Stream

Dr. Ittleson received a Bachelors degree in Radio-Television-Film, a Masters Degree in Instructional Television, and a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology and Instructional Design from Northwestern University.

Harry Powell, Technology and Media Administrator
Monterey County Office of Education

He has served as an educational technology consultant, community college and university instructor, and District Resource Teacher in educational technology, science, and social studies. He has extensive experience in grant writing; technology planning and instruction; and facilitating the implementation of school/district networks (Local and Wide Area networks) for instruction. He has planned, implemented and coordinated numerous workshops, courses, and trainings for the general public and educators. Since 1982, he has held a variety of leadership positions in Computer-Using Educators (CUE), one of the largest education-based technology organizations in the United States.

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Site Version 1.8 (October 3, 2005)

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