JR in Education
My involvement in education is both in my personal life - with my local schools, other schools, and my own kids education - and in my professional role as Product Management Director of GSuite for Education products.
Public Speaking on Education
I've done a fair share of public speaking - much of it related to education. Here is a selection of some of those talks which are available on YouTube.
Recent Video: Google Education On Air
This keynote - adapted from my talk on "Machine Learning Inspiration For Human Learning" - was pre-recorded and shown as an introduction to the Google Education on Air event for Australia and New Zealand at the end of 2017.
(note: my section is 15 min starting at 7:42)
Machine Learning Insights for Human Learning - TheNextWeb (TNW), Amsterdam, 2017
TNW is not an education conference, but the topic resonates with all audiences since education impacts all of us from an early age. This talk focuses on my belief that the progress we've made in Machine Learning could actually provide insights for us to advance human learning. It could have been titled "Stop coding my kids". As we have taught machines to effectively learn, we have focused too much on teaching our kids to pass standardized tests rather than to dynamically solve problems and invent new things.
BETT 2016 - Overview of Google Education efforts & demo of Google Expeditions via launch of David Attenborough production.
For this talk, we had students and their teacher join us on stage to demonstrate the live use of Google Expeditions VR, where the teacher took the kids on a trip!
Personal Involvement in Education
I was a member of the Board of Education in Chester, NJ K-8 School District for a 3-year term from 2015 through 2017.
I helped initiate and stay involved in the "Tech Club" in our middle school and work on the Board of Ed Tech Committee in Chester, NJ. I often volunteer in the club and help kids with technical projects. I also volunteer time to help teachers and students use technology effectively in learning by participating in Career Day at various local schools, and helping with teacher professional development and community events.
I'm very active on Twitter on education topics and try to both learn from educators, administrators and students - and help them with topics related to Google and EdTech products that I know well.