Judges
Susan Adelmann
Susan Adelmann is Vice President, Strategic Partnerships for Follett School and Library Group, a division of Follett Corporation. Follett has supplied learning resources, innovative tools, and services exclusively to educators for over 138 years, with a current global business footprint in 110 countries. In her 6 years at Follett, Susan’s work has centered on digital and personalized learning platforms, data measurement and interoperability and other emerging technologies that support 21st century learning in K-12 schools. Prior to joining Follett, Susan held a variety of engineering and marketing leadership roles in the software industry. Notable achievements include leading the development and launch of what is today the Epicor Vision distribution system, along with guiding the direct marketing product launch efforts for numerous high profile software companies and technology media publishers. Susan punctuated her 30 year technology career with a passion for teaching and learning as a community college Computer Science instructor. As a digital learning evangelist, Susan is an industry speaker on education technology trends and opportunities and she currently serves on the board of directors for the Partnership for 21st Century Skills and several working groups and the board of directors for the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), Education Division.
Isabel Chipungu
Isabel's career in education began as a summer camp counselor in Cheboygan, Northern Michigan. She taught English for three years to students of conversational and Business English. In 2001, she took a position as Reference Librarian in the Orlando Public Library. In 2004, she made the transition to Elementary School Media Specialist in order to serve young children full- time. Isabel currently manages the Ocoee Elementary School Media Center which serves and teaches 850 children ages 4-11.
Collaboration and curriculum integration are the keys to an excellent school library media program. In order to meet the Follett Challenge Isabel demonstrated how the Ocoee Elementary school the Music, Art, P.E, Media Center and First grade teachers collaborated on a program to fully integrate literacy into every part of the school curriculum. They took the picture books of Eric Carle and examined the scientific concepts behind these books to create an arts integration project. Students composed music about animal life cycles, created collages of scientific concepts and examined the parts of a plant with a magnifying glass among many other strategies to become familiar with the scientific vocabulary necessary to meet first grade standards.
Winning the Follett challenge was a beginning. The prize money enabled the school to purchase materials that will enhance learning and engage students for a decade. The next project involves collaborating with another Follett Challenge winner to reach more students by having a Skype book club and meet the author sessions. These book club discussions will be aligned to Common- Core language arts standards to add rigor and text- complexity to the learning process.
Isabel is a member of Orange County Association of Media Educators, Florida Association of Media Educators and Classroom Teachers Association. In addition she is the 2013 Teacher of the Year for Ocoee Elementary School.
Michael Gorman
Michael Gorman, a graduate of Western Michigan, Indiana, and Johns Hopkins Universities, is the 1:1 Coordinator at Southwest Allen Co Schools (Fort Wayne). He consults for Discovery Ed, November Learning, PBS, and BIE. Mike has presented at ISTE in Washington DC/Denver/ Philadelphia, BLC in Boston, the National Middle School Conference, IMLEA, ICE and CELLs Education Transformation Conference in Indianapolis, the National STEM Institute in Washington DC, MECC in Tempe and CUE in Palm Springs.
Michelle Luhtala
Michelle Luhtala is Library Department Chair of New Canaan High School (CT), which won the AASL National School Library Program of the Year Award in 2010. The Carnegie Corporation of New York, in conjunction with the New York Times, recognized Michelle as one of the ten 2011 recipients of the I Love My Librarian award. She serves on the AASL board as Region I Director-Elect, two Connecticut Digital Library advisory boards and she is co-chair of the CoSN Awards Committee. Michelle facilitates a Follett Software Company-sponsored virtual professional learning community for school librarians called Using Emerging Technology to Improve Your Library Program at edWeb.net, an online professional learning network for educators. As facilitator, she presents monthly webinars to the membership.
She is a fierce advocate for free-range media and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) learning in K-12 education, which is the focus of her blog, Bibliotech.me.
Andrew Miller
Andrew Miller has taught both in the brick-and- mortar classroom and online. He currently serves on the National Faculty for the Buck Institute for Education and ASCD. He travels internationally, training educators and presenting at conferences around his areas of expertise. He has presented at a variety of conferences including National Association for Multicultural Education, National Council for Teachers of English, and iNACOL’s Virtual Schools Symposium. He is an avid blogger for a variety of organizations including, ASCD, Edutopia and the education section of the Huffington Post. He is a member of KinectEducation, a group committed to using Game-Based Learning and Game Technology in the classroom.
Paul R. Sanfrancesco
Paul R. Sanfrancesco is director of IT for the Garnet Valley School District in the suburbs of Philadelphia, PA. He teaches as adjunct professor in the Graduate Education Department at Saint Joseph’s University, Philadelphia, PA and Neumann University, Aston, PA. He was named as one of the “20 to Watch” Educators for 2008 by the National School Boards Association for his work in IT. Prior to his current position, he was Director of Technology for the 200+ schools of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. He has served on Dell’s K-12 Platinum Council for the past seven years. He is a speaker for the National Catholic Education Association (NCEA), the International Society for Technology Education (ISTE) and a technology consultant for William H. Sadlier, Inc., publishing company. Mr. Sanfrancesco has offered presentations to teachers, administrators, parents and students in the Archdioceses of Allentown, Atlanta, Monterey, Philadelphia, Raleigh, San Francisco, Savannah, Trenton and Wilmington.
Susan Adelmann
Susan Adelmann is Vice President, Strategic Partnerships for Follett School and Library Group, a division of Follett Corporation. Follett has supplied learning resources, innovative tools, and services exclusively to educators for over 138 years, with a current global business footprint in 110 countries. In her 6 years at Follett, Susan’s work has centered on digital and personalized learning platforms, data measurement and interoperability and other emerging technologies that support 21st century learning in K-12 schools. Prior to joining Follett, Susan held a variety of engineering and marketing leadership roles in the software industry. Notable achievements include leading the development and launch of what is today the Epicor Vision distribution system, along with guiding the direct marketing product launch efforts for numerous high profile software companies and technology media publishers. Susan punctuated her 30 year technology career with a passion for teaching and learning as a community college Computer Science instructor. As a digital learning evangelist, Susan is an industry speaker on education technology trends and opportunities and she currently serves on the board of directors for the Partnership for 21st Century Skills and several working groups and the board of directors for the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), Education Division.
Isabel Chipungu
Isabel's career in education began as a summer camp counselor in Cheboygan, Northern Michigan. She taught English for three years to students of conversational and Business English. In 2001, she took a position as Reference Librarian in the Orlando Public Library. In 2004, she made the transition to Elementary School Media Specialist in order to serve young children full- time. Isabel currently manages the Ocoee Elementary School Media Center which serves and teaches 850 children ages 4-11.
Collaboration and curriculum integration are the keys to an excellent school library media program. In order to meet the Follett Challenge Isabel demonstrated how the Ocoee Elementary school the Music, Art, P.E, Media Center and First grade teachers collaborated on a program to fully integrate literacy into every part of the school curriculum. They took the picture books of Eric Carle and examined the scientific concepts behind these books to create an arts integration project. Students composed music about animal life cycles, created collages of scientific concepts and examined the parts of a plant with a magnifying glass among many other strategies to become familiar with the scientific vocabulary necessary to meet first grade standards.
Winning the Follett challenge was a beginning. The prize money enabled the school to purchase materials that will enhance learning and engage students for a decade. The next project involves collaborating with another Follett Challenge winner to reach more students by having a Skype book club and meet the author sessions. These book club discussions will be aligned to Common- Core language arts standards to add rigor and text- complexity to the learning process.
Isabel is a member of Orange County Association of Media Educators, Florida Association of Media Educators and Classroom Teachers Association. In addition she is the 2013 Teacher of the Year for Ocoee Elementary School.
Michael Gorman
Michael Gorman, a graduate of Western Michigan, Indiana, and Johns Hopkins Universities, is the 1:1 Coordinator at Southwest Allen Co Schools (Fort Wayne). He consults for Discovery Ed, November Learning, PBS, and BIE. Mike has presented at ISTE in Washington DC/Denver/ Philadelphia, BLC in Boston, the National Middle School Conference, IMLEA, ICE and CELLs Education Transformation Conference in Indianapolis, the National STEM Institute in Washington DC, MECC in Tempe and CUE in Palm Springs.
Michelle Luhtala
Michelle Luhtala is Library Department Chair of New Canaan High School (CT), which won the AASL National School Library Program of the Year Award in 2010. The Carnegie Corporation of New York, in conjunction with the New York Times, recognized Michelle as one of the ten 2011 recipients of the I Love My Librarian award. She serves on the AASL board as Region I Director-Elect, two Connecticut Digital Library advisory boards and she is co-chair of the CoSN Awards Committee. Michelle facilitates a Follett Software Company-sponsored virtual professional learning community for school librarians called Using Emerging Technology to Improve Your Library Program at edWeb.net, an online professional learning network for educators. As facilitator, she presents monthly webinars to the membership.
She is a fierce advocate for free-range media and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) learning in K-12 education, which is the focus of her blog, Bibliotech.me.
Andrew Miller
Andrew Miller has taught both in the brick-and- mortar classroom and online. He currently serves on the National Faculty for the Buck Institute for Education and ASCD. He travels internationally, training educators and presenting at conferences around his areas of expertise. He has presented at a variety of conferences including National Association for Multicultural Education, National Council for Teachers of English, and iNACOL’s Virtual Schools Symposium. He is an avid blogger for a variety of organizations including, ASCD, Edutopia and the education section of the Huffington Post. He is a member of KinectEducation, a group committed to using Game-Based Learning and Game Technology in the classroom.
Paul R. Sanfrancesco
Paul R. Sanfrancesco is director of IT for the Garnet Valley School District in the suburbs of Philadelphia, PA. He teaches as adjunct professor in the Graduate Education Department at Saint Joseph’s University, Philadelphia, PA and Neumann University, Aston, PA. He was named as one of the “20 to Watch” Educators for 2008 by the National School Boards Association for his work in IT. Prior to his current position, he was Director of Technology for the 200+ schools of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. He has served on Dell’s K-12 Platinum Council for the past seven years. He is a speaker for the National Catholic Education Association (NCEA), the International Society for Technology Education (ISTE) and a technology consultant for William H. Sadlier, Inc., publishing company. Mr. Sanfrancesco has offered presentations to teachers, administrators, parents and students in the Archdioceses of Allentown, Atlanta, Monterey, Philadelphia, Raleigh, San Francisco, Savannah, Trenton and Wilmington.