Speaker Biographies

Shigeru Miyagawa | Robert Metcalfe | Bonnie Bracey | Steve Lerman | Henry Jenkins | Toby Woll |
Maria D'Itria | Mary Rudder | Brenda Matthis | Nolan Bowie | Anne Margulies | John Belcher

Shigeru Miyagawa

Dr. Shigeru Miyagawa teaches linguistics and media/cultural courses at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is Professor of Linguistics and holds the Chair, Kochi-Manjiro Professorship in Japanese Language and Culture. He is the Executive Producer of StarFestival, a multimedia program about cultural identity. StarFestival is being used at MIT, and it has been adopted by the Boston Public Schools and Hawaii Public Schools. It has won numerous awards and recognitions, including a Distinguished Award from Multimedia Grandprix 2000 (Japan), Best of Show from MacWorld, and top-rate reviews by MacAddict magazine, International Society of Technology in Education, and Education about Asia. He is also the Founder of JP NET ("Japanese Network,"), a 20,000 web-page website on Japanese language and culture. For his work in media, MIT awarded him the Irwin Sizer Award, for the Most Significant Contribution to MIT Education. He is also the recipient of the prestigious International Cultural Award, from the Cultural Foundation For Promoting the National Costumes of Japan. His research in media has attracted over $3.5 million in support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Department of Education, Canon, Fuji-Xerox, and Fujitsu, among others. He has also consulted for a number of multinational corporations and also the Japanese government. At MIT, along with media- and culture-related courses, he teaches graduate courses in linguistics. His book, Structure and Case Marking in Japanese, is a standard textbook for graduate courses in Japanese linguistics world-wide. For his work in linguistics, he was awarded the National Individual Research Service Award from the National Institutes of Health. He is an Associate Editor of Language, and he serves on the editorial boards of Linguistic Inquiry, Syntax, Journal of East Asian Linguistics, and Journal of Japanese Linguistics. Prior to joining the MIT faculty in 1991, he was the Head of Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at Ohio State University. He received his Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Arizona in 1980, and his B.A. from the International Christian University in Tokyo in 1975.

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Robert Metcalfe

Dr. Robert M. ("Bob") Metcalfe is a venture capitalist at Polaris Venture Partners in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Polaris partners are early-stage investors in information and medical technologies. Metcalfe specializes in Boston-based information technology start-ups.

Metcalfe serves on the boards of IDG, IDC, MIT, MediaLabEurope, Kelmscott Rare Breeds Foundation, Camden Technology Conference, Avistar, Narad, Avaki, and Ember.

Metcalfe had three careers before becoming a venture capitalist on 1/1/1:

While an engineer-scientist (1965-1979), Metcalfe helped build the early Internet. In 1973, at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, he invented Ethernet, the international local-area networking standard on which he shares four patents.

While an entrepreneur-executive (1979-1990), Metcalfe founded 3Com Corporation, the billion- dollar networking company where at various times he was Chairman, CEO, division general manager, and vice president of engineering, marketing, and sales.

While a publisher-pundit (1990-2000), Metcalfe was CEO of IDG's InfoWorld Publishing Company (1992-1995). For eight years, he wrote an Internet column, From the Ether, read weekly by 629,000 information technology professionals. He also wrote for American Spectator, Forbes, Technology Review, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired Magazine. He gave frequent speeches, appeared on radio and television, and hosted his own weekly webcast. He held entrepreneurship salons and produced conferences including ACM97, ACM1, Agenda, Pop!Tech, and Vortex.

Metcalfe's books include:

  • Packet Communication (Computer Classic Revisited). San Diego, CA: Annabooks, 1996. ISBN: 1573980331.
  • Denning, Peter and Robert M. Metcalfe. Beyond Calculation: The Next Fifty Years of Computing. New York, NY: Copernicus, 1997. ISBN: 0387949321.
  • Internet Collapses and Other InfoWorld Punditry. Foster City, CA: IDG Books Worldwide. ISBN: 076453503X.

Metcalfe was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1946. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1969 with degrees in electrical engineering and management. His 1973 Harvard PhD dissertation was entitled Packet Communication. He was consulting associate professor of electrical engineering at Stanford, where he taught computer programming and networking 1976-1983. He was a 1991-92 visiting fellow in the Computer Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, England.

Among numerous awards, Metcalfe received the Grace Murray Hopper Award in 1980 from the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). In 1988, he received the Alexander Graham Bell Medal from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). In 1995, Metcalfe was elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1996, he received the IEEE's Medal of Honor. In 1997, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. And in 1999, he was elected fellow of the International Engineering Consortium.

After 22 years in Silicon Valley, Metcalfe now lives with his family on a farm in Maine and a townhouse in Boston.

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Bonnie Bracey

Bonnie Bracey is a teacher-agent of change, a mentor teacher who works with technology integration projects emphasing the use of technology as media , nationally and internationally.

A highlight of her career was to be appointed to the National Information Infrastructure Advisory Council by President Clinton to work with Vice President Al Gore and the Commerce Dept. . She served in this position for the duration of the council. She helped to author the two products of the council.

National Work

KickStart Initiative:

Connecting America's Communities to the Information Superhighway helps community leaders launch KickStart Initiatives to bring their communities onto the Information Superhighway.

A Nation of Opportunity:

Realizing the Promise of the Information Superhighway sets forth the mandate and mission of the United States Advisory Council on the National Information Infrastructure.

CyberEd

Following the NII reports, she was selected to be a K-12 teacher representative on another White House Technology Initiative CyberEdThere was established a resource for school, and community use which is this web page.

NCATE

The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) has released a report on technology that should drive change in NCATE’s accreditation standards and raise the bar for teacher candidate and faculty use of technology in schools of education. Bonnie was one of two K-12 teachers involved in crafting this report.

Technology and the New Professional Teacher:

Preparing for the 21st Century Classroom (1997)

National Foundation for the Improvement of Education, NEA

She is a teacher ambassador for this educational group.

New NSDC Standards

She was the teacher representative that helped to frame the new NSDC standards.

National Staff Development Standards

EOT-PACI

She continues to collaborate with the NCSA , learning in workshops and outreach the new uses of Next Generation Internet.

In addition to work on digital equity,she is collaborating and studying in the areas of visualization and modeling, ubiquitous computing, and on line learning. She has a special interest in wireless initiatives, and immersive projects.

Online Inernet Institute

Ms. Bracey co-founded the Online Internet Institute, This project was funded by NSF.

CILT

She is a working member of the digital diversity project at CILT. This group has been funded to create projects on digital equity and to speak at conferences. . Further collaborating with CILT , on the Knowledge Network, and with TERC in learning projects that outreach to teachers.

Third World Summit for Children

Collaboration and work with the European Children’s Television Centre, Athens Greece

This was a three year project involving many kinds of media, which result in a conference with talent, and resources drawn from all over the world. There was an Agora project each summer. There were collaborations and attendance with the premiere film festivals for children such as Prix Jeunesse.

Producer, with Thanassis Rikaki, High Technology Section of the Summit

Producer, Project for the Indigenous

Technology Resource Collaborator(media as a tool)

New Collaborations

Digital Equity Book Project This is a PT3 Project, Leaders, Gwen Solomon and Paul Resta

Games to Teach Project (Program in Comparative Media Studies) Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Star Festival Network Massachusetts Institute of Technology

She recently got an award from SF WOW as one of the 25 most influential women on the web. Here is how they presented her.

SFWOW Winner

Bonnie Bracey is a technology pioneer. She is an outspoken advocate for teacher involvement in the exploration and visioning for the use of technology as a tool. She is a Lucas Fellow. She was a member of the National Information Infrastructure Advisory Council appointed by President Clinton working with Vice President Gore and the Department of Commerce in helping to frame the documents that provided the national visions for the use of technology. She has been helping teachers all over the world in global and national outreach on special initiatives. Most of her work is as a volunteer.

A former Fulbright Exchange Teacher to India and an elementary school teacher in Virginia, Ms. Bracey was selected as a Christa McAuliffe Educator by the National Education Association's National Foundation for the Improvement of Education. She is also a Challenge Center Fellow and memberof International Faculty. She has been involved with NASA's youth projects and is on the NASA review board for youth projects.

She serves on the faculty of the Challenger Center and is a NEWEST Graduate, Langley, and NEW graduate of Goddard Space Center.

Bonnie is an advocate for gender equity and for digital bridges to create transformational learning.

Bonnie will be featured in Converge Magazine, this July as a technology pioneer.

Converge Magazine came to Greece to observe her international work.

Ms. Bracey serves on numerous advisory boards and has served on boards, including Lightspan,The Lucas Foundation,: Technos, The National Urban League, E-School News, On the Horizon, African Schoolnet( as observer) and , CTCnet, and the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education Task Force. She is a TENS pioneer, Davos Foundation.

She was the original network director of the 21st Century Teacher's Network and served 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. She is the New Technologies Educational Advisor for the European Children's Television Center.

Ms. Bracey is a frequent speaker at educational technology conferences and those focusing on bridging the Digital Divide.

She pioneered listserv projects with teachers , List Serv , NII Teach ( University of Idaho) with a lot of help from friends

Articles

Thank you, National Geographic

Educational Technology in the World Today

(Edutopia) Digital Divide - George Lucas Educational Foundation

Educational CyberPlayGround RingLeader Bonnie Bracey provides "Essays by Bonnie"

Cookies 101

Bridging the Digital Divide

The Call to Action: Did You Hear It?

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Steve Lerman

Professor Steven R. Lerman is the holder of the Class of 1922 Distinguished Professorship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is currently the Chair of the MIT Faculty. He also is the Director of the Center for Educational Computing Initiatives (CECI), the research unit of an MIT-wide research center devoted to studying the application of computational and communication technologies to teaching and learning.

From 1983 to 1988, Professor Lerman directed MIT's Project Athena. This project developed a campus-wide distributed system of advanced computer workstations at MIT. Athena's facilities span the entire MIT campus, providing computational support for the MIT curriculum. The project used grants of hardware, software, maintenance and staff support from Digital Equipment Corporation and IBM. It also included a multi-million dollar program of support for the faculty and students of MIT to undertake the development of a new generation of educational software to be used at MIT.

Since joining the MIT faculty, Prof. Lerman has served as the Head of the Transportation Systems Division and the Head of the Intelligent Engineering Systems Laboratory. He is a member of both the Management Board of the MIT Press and the Board of Directors of Cambridge Systematics, Inc.

He is the author of two books and numerous journal articles as well as his computer methods textbook, Introduction to Computation and Problem Solving for Scientists and Engineers (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1992. ISBN: 0134821262.).

Prof. Lerman was one of the principal investigators of the Networked Multimedia Information Services (NMIS) Project at MIT. This four year program developed one of the largest on-line repositories of digital video. Research in the NMIS project created one of the earliest streaming video players for the Internet, technology that enables soft segmentation of MPEG-1 clips, and an innovative, SGML-based markup language for temporal media.

Steven R. Lerman received his Bachelors, Masters and PhD degrees from MIT in 1972, 1973 and 1975 respectively. His undergraduate degree is in Civil Engineering, and both his graduate degrees are in the area of transportation systems. He was appointed to the MIT faculty in 1975, and he is now a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering. In 1994 Prof. Lerman was also appointed as a Professor II at the University of Bergen in Norway. He has been a Visiting International Professor at the Universidad Gabriela Mistral in Santiago, Chile since 1993. He served as Associate Chair of the MIT Faculty in AY97-98, as Chair-elect in AY 98-99 and as Chair from 1999 to 2001.

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Henry Jenkins

Henry Jenkins, Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT, has spent his career studying media and the way people incorporate it into their lives. He has published articles on a diverse range of topics relating to popular culture, including work on STAR TREK, WWF Wrestling, Nintendo Games, and Dr. Seuss. He testified in 1999 before the U.S. Senate during the hearings on media violence that followed the Littleton shootings and served as co-chair of Pop!Tech, the 1999 Camden Technology Conference. Jenkins has published six books and more than fifty essays on popular culture. His books include:

  • Buy at MIT Press Casell, Justine and Henry Jenkins. From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780262032582.
  • The Children's Culture Reader. New York, NY: New York University Press, 1998. ISBN: 0814742327.
  • "What Made Pistachio Nuts": Early Sound Comedy and the Vaudeville Aesthetic. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1993. ISBN: 0231078544.
  • Karnick, Kristine Brunovska, and Henry Jenkins. Classical Hollywood Comedy. New York, NY: Routledge, 1994. ISBN: 0415906393.
  • Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. London, UK; New York, NY: Routledge, 1992. ISBN: 0415905729.
  • Jenkins, Henry, Tara McPherson, and Jane Shattuc. Hop on Pop: The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Culture. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002. ISBN: 0822327279.

Jenkins holds a PhD in Communication Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an M.A. in Communication Studies from the University of Iowa.

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Toby Woll

Toby Woll is Director of Learning Technology Initiatives at the MIT Sloan School of Management. In this newly created position, Woll is responsible for managing new Sloan initiatives in which technology is being used to deliver and enhance the educational experiences both on and off campus. Woll works with participating faculty, subcontractors, sponsoring companies, and the supporting services within Sloan. In addition, she provides an interface with other MIT departments working in the area of educational technology. Woll was previously the Director of the Sloan Fellows Program at the Sloan School of Management.

Prior to coming to MIT, Toby Woll was the Executive Director of the Center for Quality of Management, an international consortium of companies and universities working together to study and implement management systems. Woll has worked extensively in information technology. Originally a systems engineer and instructor at IBM, she founded and was a principal of a computer consulting group that designed and implemented mainframe and micro computer applications. She taught the use of computers as a management tool in industry and as an integral part of university-based management education programs. She has a B.A. from Bryn Mawr College and was named a CQM Fellow in 1997.

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Maria D'Itria

Maria R. D'Itria is a fifth grade teacher at the Harvard Kent School, a BPS Lead/Mentor Teacher, a Math Standards Facilitator, a Cooperating Teacher Trainer, a member of the Instructional Leadership Team, and a Golden Apple recipient. She has participated in the Boston Children's Museum TAP Multicultural Institute, as well as a number of workshops focusing on Japan and Southeast Asia. She was the Museum's representative to the CTAPS Summer Study " A Global Perspective: Integrating Asia-Pacific in the Curriculum" at the University of Hawaii East West Center. She participated in the Japan Travel/Study Program also sponsored by the Museum and traveled throughout Southeast Asia and Indonesia with CTAPS. On the local level, she has collaborated with the National Parks Service, People and Places Program, and the Bostonian Society to enrich students' knowledge of local heroes and events in Boston's history. She and her students have helped to create the Boston Women's Heritage Trail and "Walk Her Way" a trail which honors the women of Charlestown. In order to enhance her classroom instruction, she participated in TeachNet and the Pioneer Technology Teacher Program. In addition, she has helped to develop curricula and field test STARFESTIVAL, A Return to Japan CD-ROM created by Professor Shigeru Miyagawa.

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Mary Rudder

Mary Rudder is a teacher in the Boston Public Schools System who has taught children from k1 level to grade 8. Her current assignment is at the Harvard Kent School in their Kindergarten program. Mrs. Rudder is a lead/mentor teacher and has held the positions of Science and English Language Arts Facilitator for her school. She is an active member of the school's Math and Instructional Leadership Teams. She has been involved in the Boston Women's Heritage Trail, the Charlestown Women's Walk and is an advisory member to the curriculum project for the new Women's Memorial in Boston. Linking herself to the future, she was one of Boston's original LINC pioneers, a program, which used computer technology to enhance curriculum. Her project was a unit on Japan. As a pioneer she was responsible for successfully guiding several colleagues through similar projects. This led to her working with the other Kindergarten as a coach and creator of curriculum units, which used technology as major component. Mrs. Rudder has presented technology workshop citywide. A trip to Japan, which had been the end result of a yearlong study, sparked an interest in cultures that were vastly different from her own. Returning to her class she worked on a curriculum project about Japan and began its use in her class. This led her to use the StarFestival CD-ROM with her class. Mary Rudder feels that it is important for her students to be able to recognize similarities and differences between cultures and to respect those cultures. She feels that it is essential to encourage these attitudes in young children.

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Brenda Matthis

Brenda Matthis is an assistant professor at Lesley University, School of Education, and Chief Examiner at Matthis Brothers Software Pathology, examiners of interfaces and logic of software programs. She recently returned as a visiting researcher at the National Institute of Multimedia Education, where she investigated technology support of students with learning disabilities in higher education. In recent years her focus has been on the use of technology for all learners and everyone in society.

Dr. Matthis has been a software designer and developer since the 70s, and loved that work but felt she was doing well but not doing good. She changed her focus to multimedia and education in 1993, focusing on the values and design biases inherent in the code and graphic interfaces in software and everyday tools. It is her passion.

Dr. Matthis is a native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin; graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee (B.B.A.); and Harvard University, Graduate School of Education (M.Ed., Ed.D.). Matthis Brothers is named after her family's long-time business which she remembers fondly.

Papers, Software Presentations and Lectures

Technology Supports For Students With Learning Disabilities In Japan And The U.S., With Dr. Yoko Hirose, Nime; International Conference For Universal Design, Yokohama, Japan, Projected: December, 2002.

Design Bias In Software Interfaces And Logic, International Conference For Universal Design, Yokohama, Japan, Projected: December, 2002.

How Teachers Can Support Students With Learning Disabilities, Fukuoka University Of Education, Fukuoka, Japan, July, 2002.

Supporting Students With Learning Disabilities In Higher Education In Japan And The Implications For It, Jhead, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, June, 2002.

"Authorship In Software: How Review Publications Examine Software Designers' Narratives And The Implications Of Their Use In Selecting Education Software For Children", Qualifying Paper - Passed With Distinction, Harvard University, Graduate School Of Education, June, 1997.

Authorship In Software, Hypertext And Narrative Workshop, Brighton, UK, April 1997.

Authorship In Software And Its Implications On Web Design, International Conference On Museums And The Web, Los Angeles, CA, March, 1997.

"Voice, Values, And Vision In Technology: Broadening The Bandwidth To Include Girls And Women", Aera, April 1996.

The Unknown Teacher: The Software Developer As Educator, Harvard University, Graduate School Of Education, Student Research Conference, March 1996.

Software And Boys' Development, Harvard Facing Ourselves Project, October, 1995.

How To Use Software For Your Own Protection, Alliance For Community Media International Conference, June 1995.

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Nolan Bowie

Nolan Bowie is Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy and a Fellow of the Shorenstein Center and the Information Infrastructure Project at the Kennedy School. From 1986-98, he was Associate Professor at Temple University School of Communications and Theater, Department of Broadcasting, Telecommunications and Mass Media. During the 1995?96 academic year he taught at the Kennedy School and was a Visiting Fellow at the Shorenstein Center. His primary policy concerns are issues of equity and access to information and information technology for all people, including those whose voices are too often underrepresented in policymaking proceedings, procedures, and discussions. Bowie has more than 24 years of experience as a professional and volunteer advocate, lawyer, writer, consultant, lecturer, advisor, and teacher in broadcasting, telecommunications, and information policy. He has also served as Assistant Special Prosecutor with the Watergate Special Prosecution Force and as Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Bureau of the New York State Department of Law. He received his law degree from the University of Michigan Law School in 1973.

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Anne Marqulies

Anne H. Margulies is the executive director of MIT's bold OpenCourseWare initiative, and brings 20 years of leadership experience in strategic planning, information technology and operations to the MIT OCW project. She came to MIT in May 2002 from FH/GPC, a government relations, public affairs and communications consulting firm where she was the Chief Operations Officer responsible for the overall performance of the firm. Prior to her time at FH/GPC, Anne was the executive vice-president of McDermott O'Neill & Associates, where she restructured the senior management team and planned and managed the sale of the company to GPC International.

From 1986 to 1998, Anne held information technology positions at Harvard University, serving as assistant provost and executive director for Harvard's Information Systems department with responsibility for all centralized administrative IT activities.

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John Belcher

Professor Belcher was born in Louisiana in 1943, and graduated from Odessa High School in West Texas in 1961. He attended Rice University in Houston, graduating with a double major in math and physics in 1965, summa cum laude. He then went to Caltech for graduate school where he earned his Ph.D. in Physics in 1971.

Professor Belcher came to MIT in 1971, to work with Professors Herbert Bridge and Alan Lazarus, who had the plasma probe on board Mariner 5. Just after he arrived, the Space Plasma Group wrote a proposal for the Voyager mission to Jupiter and Saturn. After reaching these two planets, as well as Uranus and Neptune, Voyager is still going strong. In its most recent incarnation, it is refered to as the Voyager Interstellar Mission. Within the next twenty years, it is probable that the MIT plasma instrument on Voyager 2 will make measurements in the interstellar medium.

Professor Belcher has twice received the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal, once for contributions to the understanding of the plasma dynamics of the Jovian magnetosphere, in 1980, and once for his role as principal investigator on the Plasma Science Experiment on Voyager during the Neptune encounter, in 1990.

Professor Belcher's research interests are within the areas of space plasma physics, outer planet magnetospheres, solar wind in the outer heliosphere, and astrophysical plasmas. He was the principal investigator on the Voyager Plasma Science Experiment during the Voyager Nepture Encounter—the end of the Grand Tour. He is now a co-investigator on the Plasma Science Experiment on board the Voyager Interstellar Mission.

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