Board of Advisors

Dr. Bernard Bull currently serves as Assistant Vice President of Academics and Associate Professor of Education at Concordia University Wisconsin. He holds degrees in history, humanities, curriculum and instruction, and instructional technology. His research focuses upon self-directed learning, alternative education, educational innovation & entrepreneurship, and the intersection of education and digital culture. He is a frequent keynote speaker & consultant, and an avid blogger at www.etale.org.

Idzie Desmarais is a grown unschooler, writer, green-anarcha-feminist, and cook. Immersed in the world of alternative education for years, Idzie has had articles published in Life Learning Magazine, Home Education Magazine, and Our Schools/Our Selves among other publications, and has spoken at the Northeast Unschooling Conference, Toronto Unschooling Conference, and Rethinking Everything Conference, as well as multiple smaller events in her home city of Montreal. Idzie feels passionately that unschooling can play an important role in the lives of individuals, but also has the potential to transform the way we look at education, the rights of children, and society in general.

When not doing education related things, Idzie loves to make tasty food (and has worked professionally as a cook), read fantasy novels and watch genre TV shows, go roadtripping with friends, spend lots of time with the cats and large shaggy dog who share her house, and  recently learning Lindy Hop swing dancing. Idzie hopes to one day help build a small intentional community somewhere rural and wild, keep chickens and goats, and spend lots of time cooking food and playing music with friends. You can read Idzie’s writing on her blog I’m Unschooled. Yes, I Can Write., as well as the Home School Life Magazine blog and Vermicious. You can find out about all of her projects at idziedesmarais.com.

Aimee Ferraro, PhD, MPH is faculty at Walden University’s School of Public Health. She obtained her bachelors in biology and psychology from Johns Hopkins University, masters in epidemiology from George Washington University, and doctorate in Health Sciences from University of Colorado at Denver. Aimee has conducted and published research in substance use and infectious diseases, but her recent research focuses on natural learning and worldschooling.

Aimee was born in Venezuela, raised in the United States, and now calls Peru home. While pregnant with her daughter, Aimee and her husband took a 4 month backpacking trip through Central and South America. They returned home for a year and since then the family has traveled 6 months of the year to different regions of the world. Together they have visited 30 countries spanning 5 continents, choosing the next destination by following their interests in surfing, ancient cultures, natural wonders, and easy visa requirements. Aimee blogs about worldschooling her daughter at TinaTheTinyTraveler.com.

Steve Hargadon is the founder and director of the Learning Revolution Project, the host of the Future of Education interview series, and founder and chair or co-chair of a number of annual worldwide virtual events, including the School Leadership Summit and the Global Education Conference, Library 2.0, the Future of Museums, Gaming in Education, and theHomeschool Conference.

Hargadon pioneered the use of social networking in education by creating the Classroom 2.0 social network in 2007, and supported and encouraged the development of thousands of other education networks, particularly for professional development. For the last eight years, he’s run a large annual ed-tech unconference, now called Hack Education (previously EduBloggerCon).Hargadon blogs, speaks, and consults on educational technology, and his virtual and physical events build community and connections in education, with 130,000 members and over 100,000 participant log-ins annually.

Steve Hargadon has been the Emerging Technologies Chair for ISTE, a regular co-host of the annual Edublog Awards, the author of “Educational Networking: The Important Role Web 2.0 Will Play in Education,” and the recipient of the 2010 Technology in Learning Leadership Award (CUE).  He have consulted or served on advisory boards for Blackboard, CoSN, Horizon Project / New Media Consortium (NMC), Instructure, Intel, KnowledgeWorks Foundation, MERLOT, Microsoft, Mightybell, Ning, PBS, Promethean, Speak Up / Project Tomorrow, U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. State Department, and others typically focusing on educational technology and social networking. A number of corporations and organizations support his events, listed at Web 2.0 Labs.

Jen Laubscher is a leader in the areas of instructional design, instructional technology, group facilitation and professional development. She has a passion for professional development that facilitates district transformation, as well as individual professional growth. Jen is a firm believer in experiential learning and supports heutagogy in all of her professional roles.

Currently, Jen serves a Training Specialist in Technology Integration on the eLearning and Instructional Technology team at the Northeastern Regional Information Center at Capital Region BOCES in Albany, NY. Previously, Jen was a Computer Education Specialist, at the Center for Instruction, Technology and Innovation (Citi) supporting two component school districts in Oswego County, New York, to provide computer, technology and instructional leadership to teachers, administrators and support staff. Her major areas of interest include blended learning, project-based learning and professional coaching.

In addition to her career, Jen also serves as an officer on the Executive Board of Directors for The New York State Association for Computers and Technologies in Education (NYSCATE) since 2012, and has been the Social Media Co-Chairperson on the NYSCATE  Annual Conference Committee since 2010.

As an instructional leader with a focus on implementing current, innovative technologies, Jen co-designed and is an ongoing facilitator of two pilot initiatives: The Blended Learning Academy at Mexico Academy and Central Schools, and Flipped Learning Boot-Camp at Phoenix Central School District.  Each initiative focused on improving pedagogical practices to meet the needs of today’s learners, and made mobile learning available to rural students in grades K-12.

Jen Laubscher is a NYS certified teacher with a Master of Science in Curriculum and Instruction and a Master of Science in Mental Health Counseling, both earned at SUC at Oswego. In her spare time, Jen loves to travel, and is interested in landscape photography.

Jim has spent almost all of his career working in online media– after earning his Masters in Computer Science from the University of Southern California in ’93, he started at the Los Angeles Times, where he was responsible for their first web site. After a couple years, he left there for Ticketmaster, where he developed their first online ticketing application, along with one of the first mobile e-commerce applications.

After bouncing around between several dot-com startups, Jim spent a couple years at Fandango before a long stint at Technicolor, where he was responsible for the development of the systems that allowed for delivery and playback of digital cinema content to your local theater.

He was also responsible for the development of Screenvision’s pre-show advertising system, for which he heartily begs your forgiveness. Middle age was approaching, and he needed the money.

Returning once again to his ticketing roots, Jim currently serves as Vice President of Technology for Wantickets, a premiere night club and electronic dance music ticketing company.

Jim lives in Los Angeles where he shares a house with three cats, two actresses, and a deer Chihuahua.