Check out this interview with Allan Alcorn. Allan was the first employee at Atari and the creator of Pong. He is one of the great minds  of our time and has worked with the likes of Steve Jobs, Woz, and many  others.

Marc Prensky is an award-winning, internationally-acclaimed keynote  speaker, author, (8 books) writer (over 100 articles and essays), and  “practical visionary”.  He is the founder and Executive Director of The  Global Future Education Foundation and the creator of the TWO BILLION  KIDS PROJECT.  Marc has spoken in over 40 countries. His writing has been translated  into a dozen languages. Marc’s book, Education to Better Their World:  Unleashing the Power of 21st Century Kids, won a FOREWORD INDIES Book of  the Year Award Gold Prize. His latest book is BELIEFS FOR 21st C. KIDS,  a free ebook.  Marc’s background includes teaching at all levels, six years at the  Boston Consulting Group, and 12 years as founder and CEO of a videogame  development company. He has been a professional musician and has acted  on Broadway. He holds degrees from Oberlin College, Middlebury College,  Yale University and the Harvard Business School.   Marc is best known for coining the terms “Digital Native” and “Digital  Immigrant” (both now in the Oxford English Dictionary.)

Learn how a few students and a professor with a passion for #gaming  started an esports club, which led to tournaments, teams, and a  curriculum all within a year! This panel consists of three UNCW club  officers and founding members of the UNCW Seahawk Esports Club. We  discuss the first year, how we got started, what worked, what didn't  work, where we are today, and future goals!

Ray Pastore #13 - Interview with Van Dempsey, Ph.D., Dean of the Watson  College of Education, UNCW   

Van O. Dempsey III, Ph.D., is the dean of the University of North  Carolina Wilmington’s Watson College of Education. In his previous role  at FSU, Dempsey oversaw the assessment of learning and academic  programs, and the evaluation of strategic initiatives and organizational  effectiveness. Prior to this role, Dempsey served as the Dean of the  School of Education, Health and Human Performance at FSU. His  accomplishments include leading the state in the implementation of new  standards for teaching practice; securing over $1,250,000 in external  funding; and collaborating with forty professional development schools  and six school districts.  Prior to FSU, Dempsey was a faculty member as West Virginia University  and also served as the Director of the Benedum Collaborative, which was  nationally recognized for its teacher education program and  school-university partnerships.  Dempsey has served in several state and national leadership positions.  He was a founding member of the Board of Directors of the National  Association for Professional Development Schools; served on the  Executive Committee of the National Network for Education Renewal and  the WV Commission for Professional Teaching Standards, serving as chair  for three years. He currently serves on the WV Board of Education’s  Higher Education High Quality Educator Stakeholder Committee. Dempsey is  the recipient of a National Academy of Sciences Board on Children,  Families and Youth “Frontiers of Research on Children, Youth and  Families” national award and has published numerous articles and  chapters.  Dempsey holds a Ph.D. in Social and Cultural Foundations from the  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also received his Master  of Arts in Teaching in Social Studies Education and his Bachelor of  Arts in Education from UNC at Chapel Hill. Prior to working in higher  education, Dempsey was a high school social studies teacher in  Fayetteville, NC and Pittsboro, NC.   

Source of profile:  https://uncw.edu/news/2015/05/uncw-names-van-o.-dempsey-iii-dean-of-the-watson-college-of-education.html

Ray Pastore #12 - Interview with Lucas Gillispie, Director of Digital  Learning and Media, Surry County Schools  

Lucas Gillispie is an instructional technologist and public educator  working in North Carolina.  An avid gamer, he is passionate about the  integration of video games into the learning environment and using games  as a model for instruction.  He is the founder and co-creator of the  WoWinSchool Project, a program designed to explore the educational  potential of online games like World of Warcraft with middle schoolers  and leads one of the largest school-based Minecraft implementations in  the world.  Though commonly leading iPad and Chromebook workshops with  teachers in his district, occasionally, you’ll find him engaged in a  heated survival games match with his middle schoolers on the district  Minecraft server or giving high schoolers roller coaster rides with an  Oculus Rift.  He shares gaming resources with educators and even makes  an occasional blog post at:  http://www.edurealms.com.   

Ray Pastore #11 - with Disaster Epidemiologist Dr. K.C. Rondello on Coronavirus - July Update

Dr. K.C. Rondello serves as Clinical Associate Professor of Public  Health and Emergency Management at Adelphi University in Garden City, NY  For almost two decades, Dr. Rondello has served as a Disaster  Epidemiologist with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’  National Disaster Medical System. Assigned to the Multi-Specialty  Enhancement Team (MSET), he has been deployed to the organization to  critical emergency medical and public health support to regions of the  country overwhelmed by disaster. In this capacity, Dr. Rondello  collaborated with the CDC’s Division of Global Migration and Quarantine  (Newark Branch) in developing an international isolation contingency  plan in response to the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic. Other notable  deployments have included dispatch to the terror attacks on the World  Trade Center (2001), Hurricane Katrina (2005), Hurricanes Gustav, Hanna,  and Ike (2008), the Great Tennessee Flood (2010), Superstorm Sandy  (2012), and Hurricane Maria (2017).  Dr. Rondello’s scholarly research focuses on the application of disaster  epidemiology to epidemic and pandemic planning and response and the  establishment and management of alternate medical treatment sites and  pharmaceutical points of distribution. He provides consultation services  to both governmental and nongovernmental organizations wishing to  become resilient against all hazards that threaten mission- critical  continuity of operations. Dr. Rondello was educated at Yale University  School of Medicine in the United States and Saint George’s Medical  School in the United Kingdom.

Ray Pastore #10 - with Dr. Robert K. Branson, Researcher and Professor  behind the ADDIE Model. 

Dr. Branson, a now retired professor from  Florida State University, was the lead author of the Interservice  Procedures For Instructional Systems Development publication, which is  widely known as the beginning of the ADDIE model in instructional  design, educational technology, and training.   Dr. Robert Branson is an experimental psychologist who had an enormous  impact on fields of instructional design and educational and performance  technology. This is in addition to his influence over numerous  organizations, the military, students, and working professionals. Dr.  Branson is most widely known as a professor at Florida State University  where he served as director of the center for performance technology at  the learning systems institute for over 30 years.  Dr. Branson began his career at Louisiana State University (LSU) where  he taught experimental psychology and statistics. After two years at  LSU, he went into private industry where he founded the General  Programmed Teaching Corporation as well as worked for several other  companies, holding positions such as project manager and director, until  1970 when he joined the faculty at Florida State.  One of Dr. Branson’s early contributions to the instructional design (ie  training field) was the development of the Interservice Procedures for  Instructional Systems Development for the US Army and Navy. This  document has become known as the first draft of what IDs know as ADDIE.  Yes this was the document that started it! - we will talk about that  history today.  In addition to that, Dr. Branson’s list of accomplishments is enormous.  For example, he worked with Fujitsu and American Management Systems to  develop a portable table computer that allowed for real time evaluation  of student progress. He created the Job skills education program which  addressed the needs of individual soldiers learning and was applied to  company such as GM, Ford and ATT. The list goes on!  He has authored number research articles, presented at many conferences,  and worked in the field professionally. He really has done it all!

Ray Pastore #9 - with Carson Bowen, General Manager - Wilmington Sharks   

Carson Bowen is currently the General Manager for the Wilmington Sharks  baseball team. Carson is a graduate of the University of North Carolina -  Wilmington, holding degrees in Marketing and Communication Studies.  Carson began working with the Sharks in 2014, serving as the radio  play-by-play commentator for two seasons before transitioning into  Ticket Operations, and now his current role. In his first year as  General Manager, Carson led the organization to be named the Coastal  Plain League's Organization of the Year for the first time since 2009. Carson serves on the Board of Young Professionals for Communities in  Schools of Cape Fear, and was named to the inaugural class of the Star  News and Wilmington Chamber of Commerce's 40 Under 40, as well as  Wilmington Business Journal's Top 100.

Ray Pastore #8 - Interview with Karl M. Kapp, Ed.D. Professor,  Bloomsburg University   

Awesome interview with Karl Kapp, the author of Gamification! Check it  out to hear his story #gamification #edtech #edtechchat #elearning  #gaming #instructionaldesign     Today we are going to be talking to Dr. Karl Kapp who is an  award-winning professor of Instructional Technology at Bloomsburg  University in Bloomsburg, PA.   Karl, whose doctoral degree is from the University of Pittsburgh, is the  Director of Bloomsburg’s Institute for Interactive Technologies and is  recognized internationally as an expert in the application of games,  game-thinking and gamification to learning.    He is currently a senior researcher on a grant sponsored by the National  Institutes of Health (NIH), has worked on several NSF grants, and is an advisor for several  EdTech start up companies.  Karl has authored/co-authored eight books, presented at TEDx, and in  2019, he received the ATD Distinguished Contribution to Talent  Development Award.   Karl’s work explores the research, theoretical foundations and practical  application of gamification, game-thinking and activity-based learning to  organizational performance issues. His goal is to help organizations create engaging learning experiences  through intelligent, research-based application of instructional strategies and techniques.  He shares his expertise and knowledge through consulting, workshops and one-on-one mentoring  with start-up firms, Fortune 100 companies and various governmental agencies.

Ray Pastore #7 - with Rebecca Pastore, M.A., on the parent’s perspective of remote learning during Coronavirus