Marge Wilsman, Project Director

The WECB Online Network began in 1994 at the Educational Communications Board with the MATHLINE Middle School Math Project. MATHLINE grew to include four different MATHLINE (ML) projects K-12, a college and university-level math project called NPRIME (Networking Project for the Improvement of Mathematics Education) and ScienceLine (SL) K-8.

In 2003, WECB Online moved to become a service of the Wisconsin Academy Staff Development Initiative project (WASDI) and was renamed WASDINet.

All the online projects in WASDINet involve use of a Facilitated Online Learning Communities. These LCs, as we call them, are lead by Wisconsin's most outstanding teacher leaders. They provide structure, guidance as well as open-ended learning opportunities for the teachers in their LC.

In 1998 we began concentrating on how to prepare facilitators for this new kind of professional development leadership work. We now have in place an online course called Think Tank for formal preparation, as well as more informal processes that provide ongoing support.

In addition to the Facilitated Learning Community Online Network, there are a number of other "Moderated" online teacher professional development programs that operate under the WASDINet banner: for example, WASDILine has been a part of the moderated online conferencing network since 1995. NPRIME and Urban Techline have been part of the network since 1998. Another participant since 1998 is the Board of Directors for the Wisconsin Mathematics Council Inc. They too have used the online conferencing network since 1998 to conduct the business of the Board and its many committees.

My main interests are varied:

• Teacher Leadership -- its places in curriculum change process and how to implement teacher leadership processes via the online learning community facilitator position.
  
  
• Faculty and K-12 Teacher Professional Development, in mathematics, science and technology education. Again, my interest is how the facilitated or moderated online learning community network can be a contributing part of this Professional Development.
  
  
• Expanding WASDINet. Research confirms that networking and learning communities are essential parts of the equation and needed because change is incremental and continuous.
  
  
• The field of Evaluation. This summer I was fortunate to have a NSF Fellowship to study evaluation at The Evaluation Center at Western Michigan University. The focus was on improving the evaluations done for NSF mathematics, science and technology education grants. I have served as the Internal Evaluator for the Wisconsin Academy Staff Development Initiative (WASDI) and currently am involved in two other evaluation projects.
  
  

Before taking my position with the ECB some 18 years ago, I worked for 15 years as a faculty member at Ohio State, University of Minnesota, Purdue and the UW-Stevens Point. I taught courses in methods, curriculum and evaluation and education research. Advising graduate students was the best part of my work. I was a classroom teacher in Ohio and Wisconsin for 4 years.

The best part about my current job is working with teachers and administrators in Wisconsin's schools and other educators who support K-12 education, including college and university faculty and CESA staff. I hate to hear criticism of public education or colleges and universities because I know how hard most of us work at making all students successful.

Have a great online experience!

Jo Ingle       2000-01, 2001-02, 2002-03, 2003-04

This academic year 2003-2004 is my 4th year of teaching in the Mathematics Department at UW-Eau Claire. My primary job here has been teacher preparation--which really has changed with the times. I also enjoy teaching introductory statistics whenever I get the chance.

I was a regional director for the PRIME project and now am on the leadership team for NPRIME. I chaired the WMC Professional Development Committee for several years and now co-chair it. Our committee has found that it is extremely useful to touch base on-line between our face to face meetings. I am looking forward to the expansion of the MATHLINE model to those of us in higher ed. and our students.

In terms of general background, I am a Midwesterner by birth. I grew up in northeastern Kansas, near Lawrence. I graduated from Mt. St. Scholastica College, a small women’s college in Atchison, Kansas with a major in math and minors in philosophy and German.. (That school is now coed and named Benedictine College.)

Thanks to my advisor, I applied for and received a fellowship to go to graduate school at George Peabody College for Teachers in Nashville, Tennessee. (Peabody is now a part of Vanderbilt University.) Bill Sparks and I were in the same program there. Both of us have Masters and Ph.Ds in Mathematics Education with a strong dose of Educational Psychology built in.

I’ve taught math or math ed at Baker University in Baldwin Kansas, at a middle school in Stanley, Kansas, at Northwest Missouri State in Maryville, Misssouri and finally here at UW–EC. Always in the midwest!

My other interests besides travel include cooking—mostly vegetarian—and reading lightweight, often humorous mysteries. I also like reading children’s literature and just finished A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck.

Karen Thomas       2001-02, 2002-03, 2003-04

I am a professor of mathematics at Edgewood College, Madison, and am a participant as well as a member of the Leadership Team in NPRIME. I have a B.A. in Mathematics from the University of Missouri-Columbia, a M.S. in Mathematics from Purdue University, and a PhD in Mathematics Education from Purdue University.

I arrived in Wisconsin in 1994, and began teaching here at Platteville in 1995. In 2003 I moved to Edgewood College. The majority of my students are preservice elementary and middle school teachers. I have wished for several years now that I could involve my students in something similar to Mathline because I know what a rich experience it has been for many teachers I have talked with. I hope that my students and I can gain some of the same benefits through this opportunity.

Linda Thompson       Jan 2002, 2002-03, 2003-04

I am a professor at Carroll College and currently serve as chair of the Mathematics Department. Carroll is a independent college located in Waukesha, WI with a full-time enrollment of about 1900 and a part-time enrollment of 800. Founded in 1846, Carroll is Wisconsin's oldest college. I am entering my 22nd year at the college this Fall.

Within the mathematics department I teaches a wide variety of courses. Among these are the mathematics content courses taken by elementary education majors and the modern geometry course taken by all mathematics majors planning to teach on the secondary level. I also teach calculus, statistics, abstract algebra, linear algebra, contemporary mathematics, discrete mathematics and elementary functions.

I am an active member of the MAA, NCTM, WMC and NPRIME.

In recent years I've served as project director of three Eisenhower Professional Development Program grants involved with introducing inservice teachers with effective uses of technology in the mathematics classroom. I am currently part of a team who have received grants from the Council of Independent Colleges and the Eisenhower Program to establish a Teaching Scholars program which places teams of math or science students from Carroll into a local high school to work as interns in the classroom.

I received a bachelor's degree at Colorado State University, a master's degree at Brown University and a Ph.D. at Oregon State University. Before returning to school to work on my doctorate, I spent five and a half years teaching mathematics at a secondary level in Colorado.

Linda Uselmann       Jan 2002, 2002-03, 2003-04

I am currently working as the math education specialist at Edgewood College in Madison, WI. I have been there since the spring of 2000, and enjoy it very much. We are working to integrate methods and content for our entire elementary math sequence, and share our progress at every opportunity, as well as activities we are using.

Years ago, I read the book "Why Professor Can't Teach" and decided that I would be a math professor who could teach. Hence my interest in education alongside mathematics.

I am working to finish my doctorate at the University of Wisconsin. I am studying how having preservice teachers look at children's early algebra learning will improve their mathematical knowledge.

Henry Kranendonk       2001–02, 2002-03, 2003-04

Henry is a mathematics and computer science teacher at Rufus King High School where he has been since 1980. He has also taught on and off at Marquette's Educational Opportunity Program since 1980. In addition, Henry is a part-time instructor at Alverno College where he has taught computer science, mathematics, and educational courses for 15 years.

Henry developed and implemented a math resource and support center for selected MU college students and for the high school Upward Bound students. His last years with the program were in the capacity of Assistant Director.

Henry is an Assistant Examiner for the Computer Science curriculum within the International Baccalaureate program. This role puts him in contact with computer science teachers around the world (all involved in the IB program). He's been to workshops in London, Cairo, Duesseldorf, and Vienna, as well as numerous cities in the US. Here too, he is completing his 15th year as an assistant examiner and senior teacher.

Henry's main outside interest is writing curriculum. Most recently, a project entitled "Data-Driven Mathematics" resulted in several publications summarizing this project. He also co-authored a book with Jeff Witmer (a statistician from Oberlin College) entitled "Exploring Centers" (and sometimes subtitled, "Raisin Geometry"). These books are published by Dale Seymour Publications.

He also developed a text entitled "Let's Connect!" that is being fielded tested at various high schools and is coordinated by students working with software accessible through web sites. This project is published by a small company called Adducive Studios (started by a former Rufus King student of his) and it should be available for all schools soon. He was able to develop this text through the a Christa McAuliffe Fellowship received in 1994-95.

Paul Martin      2003-04

UW-Marathon

Anne Frihart      2002-03, 2003-04

I work primarily with the NPRIME project but also assist on other projects as needed. I am also a professional librarian and worked for 23 years as a librarian for RoperASW (formerly Roper Starch Worldwide, formerly Response Analysis Corporation), a market researh firm in Princeton, NJ. Before that I was an engineering librarian for Mobil and at Columbia University. I have also been a children's librarian at Fond du Lac Public Library.

I am a native of Wisconsin and grew up in the north woods (Woodruff, Minocqua, Lake Tomahawk). I graduated from Lakeland Union High School in Minocqua and attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where I majored in geography (B.A.) and then in library science (M.A.)

I moved back to the state in early 2002 because my husband got a job at the Forest Products Lab in Madison (he's a chemist). I have three grown children — Eric, Becky, and Karl — and a fairly new grandson, Austin. In my free time I enjoy reading, sewing, kayaking, camping, biking, and hiking.

Revised 9-7-03