Digital Kids Learning & Play Advisory Board

Below is the advisory board for our February 2014 Digital Kids Learning & Play event in New York:

Dylan Arena, Co-founder and Chief Learning Scientist, Kidaptive
Dylan is a learning scientist with a background in cognitive science, philosophy, and statistics. He has run many experimental studies, presented at numerous conferences, and written multiple publications on the topic of game-based learning.

Dylan started out as a software developer at Oracle, but after a few years he returned to graduate school at Stanford, where he worked on both game-based learning and next-generation assessment as a MacArthur Emerging Scholar in Digital Media and Learning. Dylan has also been a Gordon Commission Science and Technology Fellow, a Stanford Graduate Fellow in Science and Engineering, a Gerald J. Lieberman Fellow, a FrameWorks Fellow, and a United States Presidential Scholar. Continue reading.

Warren Buckleitner, Editor and Founder, Children’s Technology Review
Warren Buckleitner, Ph.D. is an expert on the relationship between young children and technology. He’s editor of Children’s Technology Review (www.childrenstech.com) and holds degrees in early childhood and elementary education. He coordinates the Bologna Ragazzi Digital Prize in cooperation with the Bologna Children’s Book Fair and is the founder of the Dust or Magic Institute (www.dustormagic.com) and the Mediatech Foundation (www.mediatech.org), a non-profit community technology center housed in his town’s library, where serves as a Trustee.

Sue Bohle, President, CEO, The Bohle Company
Sue Bohle is a highly regarded public relations professional who has been providing hands on, senior level counsel to traditional game and serious games and interactive entertainment companies since 1983.   She has been the lead speaker on PR for the game industry at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) five times and wrote the marketing chapter for a major textbook on getting into the video game industry.

The Bohle Company has served hardware, software, tools, conference producers and online game sites and launched titles in all genres and for all platforms. Among the companies Sue has counseled include Alienware, Warner Bros, Atari, Activision, id, The 3DO Company, IGN.com, GDC, Nyko, Cyberprofessional Games and numerous start-ups, including more than 10 MMOs and several iPhone game companies. Continue reading

Silvia Lovato, Sr. Director, Products, PBS KIDS Digital
Silvia Lovato oversees PBS KIDS Digital Products, including the PBS KIDS online and mobile video players, which now deliver over 200 million streams per month. She has spent the past 12 years working with content producers to develop engaging, fun and educational digital content for kids 2-8, from games to apps to original online video. Continue reading

Ted Tagami, Executive Director, Summer.org
Ted Tagami is the Executive Director of Summer.org. The site is committed to bring state-of-the-art technology and requisite curricula to the 21st Century classroom via project-based STEM education. With the help of corporate sponsorship and grant pooling, students will have a chance to learn and experience trend setting and open source technology developed by today’s technologists and scientists for little or no cost.

Eliza Spang, Learning Director, Institute of Play
Eliza is responsible for overseeing the design, development, testing and packaging of engaging programs and resources that align with and expand the Institute of Play’s innovative game-like integrated learning model. Eliza began her career in education as a high school science teacher and went on to earn a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Teacher Education from Stanford University. She also taught in the Stanford Teacher Education Program and researched teacher effectiveness and scientific inquiry use in classrooms at Stanford. Prior to joining the Institute of Play, Eliza worked at WestEd and Relay Graduate School of Education.

Brett Somers, VLAB EdTech Team Member,  MIT Stanford VLAB
Educator, Developer, and Business Person – Brett comes from the major industries that drive Ed Tech with his classroom experience teaching science and math, his background managing software teams, and his business consulting experience. This perspective gives him insight into the various success factors involved in creating digital education products that maximize K12 student learning while providing a sustainable business model in a historically tough market to enter.  Brett has been working on the MIT-Stanford VLAB team to help produce a leading-edge EdTech forum focused on business opportunities related to the Common Core disruption.