In this episode of the Digital Learning Today Podcast, Jeff welcomes Ilene Rosenthan and Kathy Maximov from Footsteps2Brilliance on the program to discuss how they have been successfully engaging parents and accelerating literacy for more than a decade.

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Ilene is a seasoned educator and executive who brings over 25 years of experience designing, developing, and implementing innovative technology to accelerate learning. She was a co-founder of Lightspan, the first educational software company to connect school and home through videogame technology. She also served as President of Strategic Initiatives for Achieve3000, a company that developed groundbreaking technology to differentiate content based on each student’s individual Lexile reading level. Ilene currently serves as CEO of Footsteps2Brilliance®, a company designed to scale early learning by connecting school and home through mobile technology and expanding strategies for parental involvement in order to help all children realize their full potential. Ilene began her career as a teacher, during which time she designed curriculum and authored textbooks. In her capacity as a lawyer, she has served as General Counsel to the Government Operations Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives and as an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of Columbia. She also served as General Counsel to the Software Publishers Association (now SIIA) and Special Assistant to the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). Ilene received her J.D. from Georgetown University and her B.A. from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn.

Kathy Maximov

Kathy is a product manager, blended learning expert, and business development professional with nearly 20 years in the educational technology industry including early education as well as corporate and teacher professional development. Kathy is passionate about education. After launching her career as a classroom teacher, Kathy found her niche working with educational technology design teams to create engaging content that would help all children learn how to read. Since that time, she has successfully managed large-scale software and app releases, created and executed strategic business partnerships, coached district, and school leadership to create transformative early literacy initiatives, organized pilot projects, written teacher guides, led design and development teams, developed complete e-learning solutions, and trained hundreds of educators around the world.

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