David is an award-winning production professional with 10 years experience developing and managing social media projects including streaming video, blogs, and other types of web-based communities. He has a Master’s from Columbia in Instructional Technology and Media. In David’s most recent position, as the Senior Producer of the Teacher Channel at Scholastic.com, he was challenged to develop the thriving teacher community, utilizing multiple forms of social media. He was also a member of the development team that earned a Webby Award for redesign of the Scholastic Teacher channel website.
Upon graduating from undergraduate school, David decided to take on the challenge of community service by teaching science in an inner city school. He chose to obtain a position with Teach for America (TFA), where he spent the next 2 years polishing his teaching skills and honing his educational technology skills in an inner city middle school. At the end of his TFA contract he was invited by the school district to collaborate with successful teachers in the district to create the district’s first “School of Choice”. David was gratified that his hard work and interest in enhancing the effectiveness of education by utilizing technology was recognized. As a new teacher, he was pleased to lead a team of educators in developing an innovative technology-based curricula that encouraged students to focus their minds beyond traditional courses to the new horizons of environmental sciences. The program was named the Ronald H. Brown School of Global Issues, after the late U.S. Secretary of Commerce. Witnessing the awakening of inner city students to learning with computer technology has continued to shape his interest in exploring the use of instructional computer technology in schools and in business.
His interests in teaching with computers and multimedia technology led him to begin working with an experimental Internet television program called “A Semester Online”, which was sponsored by Levi Strauss and the Pseudo Online Network (Pseudo.com). This was one of the first online “reality shows”. The premise of the show revolved around a group of college students who were challenged to live an entire semester making all purchases online (a tough task back in 1999). As a result of his contributions to this show, he was hired by the Pseudo Online Network and eventually became a Producer. While working at Pseudo.com he developed a variety of educational social networks and multimedia “communities of interest”, on the Pseudo Online Network, examples being SpaceWatch.com and LiveFromMars.com.
His next challenge was as the key educator for the Global Education Network (GEN). This was a project that was incubated by Allen and Co. with a goal of launching it as the first, online, “Ivy League” institution. He was responsible for designing interactive multimedia university courses. He developed course pedegogy, organized production, and supervised a team of Flash animators, editors, camera people and video engineers in the creation of these courses. As a leader of the development team, he produced courses ranging from Calculus to U.S. History. Most courses included over 100 hours of Flash animation, thousands of historic images, and 20-30 hours of historic video footage, which was combined with the featured Ivy League professor’s footage and narration.
In 2005 David completed a Masters Degree in Instructional Technology and Media from Columbia University’s Teachers College. While completing his Masters Degree, he was awarded a Technology Fellowship. As a Technology Fellow he was challenged to train professors in the implementation of educational technology in the classroom and online multimedia portfolio development. Immediately following the completion of his M.A., he was hired as the Instructional Designer for BMW Group University Studios (Team Productions), located within the BMW Group of North America’s (BMWNA) national headquarters. As the Instructional Designer for BMW Group University Studios, David led producers in the development of training videos and wrote scripts and instructional information for various types of video programming. These videos ranged from consumer programming for BMWNA’s website to internal training programs delivered through BMW University’s online portal.
David was recruited to consult at Sundance Channel, as Senior Producer of The Green, presented by Robert Redford. While at the Sundance Channel, he led the development of a sustainable lifestyle-oriented web portal. As a part of this project he implemented and developed the online community in an innovative manner. He chose to create a site around an “Eco-mmunity” (a map-based social network), to enable the users to share information on sustainable living. This innovative idea became the first Google location (map) based social network. This community was developed to highlight environmental issues that were the focus of Sundance Channels’ programming, while realizing the goals of the project’s sponsors, Lexus and Smith Barney. As leader of this project, David also supervised the development of all online videos for the site (The Green Online). For further info see David’s portfolio – http://Grandison.info