Ryan Ikeda

So my name is Ryan Ikeda and I teach English at Los Altos High School. This is will be my second year teaching. I enjoy traveling and am leaving for Palestine, Egypt, Jordan, and Spain in 9 days!!! I'll be returning a couple days before our program starts. I'm looking forward to working with you all this summer. Ryan

Matthew Phillips

Greetings, nerds!  

My name is Matthew Phillips.  I just moved to the bay area recently from Montana. 

This will be my second year living and Mountain View and teaching English in Fremont.  My colleagues and I are working on creating a Technology career path at our school and we are looking forward to forming some common practices. I’m excited to start exploring ideas and making plans for next year.  I’ve got a bunch of ideas to try.  Most probably won’t work (my fMRI assisted reading assessment plan is ahead of its time) but with some collaboration and adaptation we’ll create something almost as innovative.

I love living and teaching in such a diverse and progressive area and I am glad to find a group of educators who are taking concrete steps toward giving students the skills they will need and desire in this particular community.  I look forward to meeting and working with you all.

Matt

 

Andrea Hutchison

Hi Everyone,
I’ve been living in California and teaching at Milpitas High School since 2000. Before that I taught in Texas for 13 years. I’ve taught pretty much all of the business education courses including programming, accounting, and computer applications. In my current position, I teach Computer Applications and am lead teacher for the Digital Business Academy and the Business Department at MHS. I finished my master’s degree from SJSU last year and took last summer off, so I’m really excited to have the opportunity to learn some new technology applications. I love to learn new things and try to instill in my students that learning is a lifelong process!
My “About Me” section includes that I’m Mom of two awesome kids. My son just turned 20 and lives in College Station, Texas where he works full-time as a department manager at Best Buy and attends Blinn College full time as well. I’m really proud of him in case you can’t tell! My daughter is 16 (going on 25) and is totally a free spirit. She’s truly the light of every day for me. She loves cheerleading; My Space, cell phones, her iPod and (ugh) boys! I know school is in there somewhere! :-) She’s very creative and wants to do something in the field of journalism.
I’m looking forward to spending time this summer with a group that I know I will have a lot in common with!

Mark White

I teach 5th grade along with fellow KCI participant, Linda Bauld, at Sunnybrae Elementary in San Mateo. I was born and raised in Colorado, but I have now lived in San Francisco for over 20 years. I started out as a corporate computer consultant, but found little satisfaction in the work. So one day, I up and quit to pursue my true dream of becoming a teacher. I have been teaching ever since, and I love, love, love it. I have worked in both public and private schools, and I have taught every grade level from pre-kindergarten to 12th, except for 3rd.

When I am not working, my passions include swimming, bicycling and traveling. I swim on a Masters team, and I occasionally compete in various meets around the country and around the world. Last year, I took up open water swimming, and I was especially excited to compete in the Waikiki Rough Water swim (2.5 miles). I am currently training for the Lake Berryessa 2 mile swim.

I also love to travel, and my last trip was to Sydney, Australia over Christmas vacation. That's me after swimming in a spectacular pool right on the harbor, with the Sydney Harbor Bridge and Opera House in the background. My next travel plans include D.C., Williamsburg, Virginia, and New York for this summer, and Copenhagen, Stockholm and Amsterdam in the summer of 2009.

I'm looking forward to working with all of you this summer. I always enjoy working with other teachers and sharing ideas.

Cathleen Carmichael

Hi, I am Cathleen Carmichael from Kennedy Middle School in Redwood City. I have taught the Computer exploratory class at Kennedy for about 14 years. Before this, I taught all subjects in 2nd through 6th grade. Now, I am branching out and teaching ELD to a small group of students who need extra help learning English. My goal is to create a project for this ELD class that includes the use of podcasts.

I am a Bay Area native but have lived in many places, Spain, Florida, Southern California and Humbolt. I got my masters degree at Humbolt State. I have a daughter just graduating from Cal State Monterey Bay and a granddaughter finishing first grade. I have a new tent trailer in which I plan to spend every minute that we are not working this summer.

I am looking forward to working with everyone this summer. It looks like a great group of educators.

Steven Caringella

Hey everyone,

Steven Caringella here. I am one of the MERIT instructors, for the K-6 group. I teach Fourth Grade at Zanker Elementary School in Milpitas Unified School District, and am about to complete my tenth year of teaching. I'm really excited to have so many other Milpitas teachers in the summer institute!

I was an EWYL (MERIT) participant in 2004, then a Fellows participant (I highly recommend this after you complete MERIT), and finally a Fellows team leader for two years. I also teach technology classes part-time here at the KCI. Check out http://caringella.my-ecoach.com to see what classes I offer.

When I am not teaching, you can find me juggling my two and a half-year old Chase, and my three month old, Dean--one in each arm--or spending time with my wife Jen. Hearing my son call me "Daddy" is about the best feeling in the world there is!

In my free time, I like to camp and backpack, read, and watch reruns of the Office over and over again. Like Michael Cummins, I too am a U2 fanatic, although he far surpasses me with his photo taken in front of Bono's home in Ireland.

Looking forward to meeting each of you this summer!

Steven
caringellasteven@foothill.edu

Barbara Okazaki

I am a Physical Education teacher at Piedmont Middle School in San Jose. I am in my 28th year of teaching and still enjoy going to work. I am married (27 years) and we have 2 daughters and 1 son. The girls have UC degrees in biology and our son is at UCLA majoring in history. We also have a 2 year old boxer/staffordshire terrier named Cheechoo.
Needless to say we are involved with many activities. (tennis, basketball, volleyball, crafts and technology) I enjoy taking tech classes as I am trying to incorporate more crafts & technology into school projects.
Physical Education is usually viewed as a "low tech" subject, but I am working on changing that at Piedmont Middle. I am very excited to be a part of the KCI Merit program this summer and look forward to meeting everyone & learning new things.